The Sitting Room, by Myra Bunce

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Date:1887

Description:‘Mr. Bunce is an intense lover of art and artists […] notable examples of Wainwright, of his old friend Henshaw, of H. Moore, Langley, J. Collier, Aumonier, East, Donaldson, Thomas Baker, Wyllie, and others, hang in his various rooms, as well as characteristic proof etchings from Burne Jones, Leighton, East, and many equally well-known names’.<small><sup>1</sup></small>

From this description in the Edgbastonia magazine, we get an impression of the visual stimuli with which Myra and Kate Bunce grew up in their comfortable home at Priory Road, Edgbaston. Their father was the well-known journalist and writer John Thackray Bunce. Editor of the Birmingham Daily Post from 1862 to 1898, Bunce involved himself in many aspects of Birmingham life, including the School of Art, the Museum, and education.

Of his daughters, Kate Elizabeth is the better known as an artist. Myra took more of an interest in metalwork, and made frames for many of Kate’s paintings. In this, she epitomised the revolutionary approach of the Birmingham School of Art, where students of both genders were encouraged to design and make objects from a variety of materials.<small><sup>2</sup></small> This interior is thought to be by Myra, and depicts a woman in a tea gown in an unspecified sitting room opening on to a conservatory. It is tempting to speculate that this might depict Longworth, the Bunce’s Edgbaston home, although it could be North Wales or Bournemouth, both popular holiday destinations for Birmingham people.

The development of suburban life during the nineteenth century tended to strengthen the bond between the middle-class woman and the home. As successful men started to move out of the town, usually the focus of their working life, to establish homes in semi-rural retreats like Edgbaston, women were divorced from the world of work and commerce.<small><sup>3</sup></small> Many women took the opportunity to get involved in philanthropic activities, while Kate and Myra devoted themselves to arts and crafts with the financial support of their father.

In Myra’s painting many details build up a picture of wealth: the carpets, velvet curtains, elegant furnishings, stained glass, ceramics and exotic plants. Yet the female figure appears isolated and possibly bored in her comfortable surroundings, a book seemingly abandoned in her lap. Middle-class life could be stifling for a woman: ‘The romantic imagination indelibly fixed the image of a rose-covered cottage in a garden where womanhood waited and from which manhood ventured abroad’.<small><sup>4</sup></small> However, the very fact that Kate and Myra were encouraged in their artistic pursuits (including the ‘unfeminine’ activity of metal bashing) shows that women were already by this time beginning to break boundaries.


<font color="#666633"><small><sup>1</sup> Edgbastonia (March 1892)
<sup>2</sup> Alan Crawford, By Hammer and Hand: The Arts and Crafts Movement in Birmingham (Birmingham: Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery, 1984), p.104
<sup>3</sup> Leonore Davidoff and Catherine Hall, Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Class 1780-1850 (London: Routledge, 2002), p.57
<sup>4</sup> Davidoff and Hall, p.28</small></font>

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Creators: Myra Louisa Bunce - Creator

Donor ref:BM&AG: 1977P60 (88/1430)

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