The art of making flowers in wax has been brought to a very high degree of perfection by Mrs. Peachey, Her Majesty's artiste. There is not a floral production that she cannot truthfully and delicately reproduce with her kindly material, and she has lately executed a work which we believe defies competition in the department to which it belongs. This is an enormous bouquet, containing flowers of the most intricate structure, and supported by a rock, which peers from a lake of the brightest looking glass, decorated in its turn with waxen aquatic plants. All the flowers were modelled in the first instance from white wax, and the beautiful colours are all produced by painting. The whole group is enclosed by a shade, composed of four glass plates, so curved as to meet at the top.
The work in question is to be seen in Rathbone Place, but it was the intention of Mrs. Peachey that it should be seen at the Crystal Palace. According to her statement, she was led to believe that she would be allowed a ground-floor situation, but was only allowed a place in the gallery, so exposed to the sun, that the first hot day would have performed a work precisely the reverse of her own labours. Under these circumstances she has deemed it better that her flowers should blush unseen, than that they should melt away in a halo of visibility.
Into the Crystal controversy it is not our desire to enter, but we would testify to the excellence of Mrs. Peachey's work as being perfect of its kind.—The Times.
We yesterday inspected a beautiful collection of wax flowers by Mrs. Peachey, artiste to Her Majesty, now on private view at 35, Rathbone Place. We have seen many specimens of the elegant art of modelling in wax, but without exaggeration we may declare that more magnificent and truthful imitations of nature it has never been our lot to witness. The centre-piece is an immense bouquet of several hundred flowers, of almost every description, and every hue, from the gorgeous scarlet cactus to the virgin-tinted snowdrop, modelled with the closest fidelity, and arranged with exquisite taste. At the foot are models of the glorious water-lily of Guyana, the recently discovered Victoria Regia, in several stages of its development, from the close shut bud with its prickly calyx to the expanded flower. Some idea of the dimensions of this giant bouquet may be formed from the fact that it stands nearly six feet in height, and that the bent plate-glass shade with which it is covered alone cost £200.
Next to this in beauty as well as size is a vast group of fruit, fifty inches in height, the shade to which is itself a curiosity, being we believe, the largest for superficial dimensions ever yet blown in England. Besides, there are a number of smaller groups of flowers and fruit, all of singular beauty. We understand that Mrs. Peachey intended this collection for exhibition at the Crystal Palace; but, owing to some miscomprehension on the part of the commission, they have been reserved for private view. The place assigned to Mrs. Peachey was, we are informed, in one of the galleries, so close to the roof as to render the solar heat too dangerous for the extremely susceptible material of which these articles are composed.—Morning Advertiser.
Mrs. Peachey, the artiste to her Majesty, has on view at her residence, 35, Rathbone Place, some new examples of her extraordinary skill in wax painting, originally intended for the Exhibition, but not permitted to appear there in consequence of the locale assigned to them being at the top of the building, where, exposed to the action of the sun, they would be in peril of dissolution. The examples consist of two remarkable models—one an enormous and magnificent bouquet, consisting of hundreds of flowers of the most intricate structure and beautiful colouring, as well as the greatest diversity of character. The violet and the Cactus grandiflora, with the water-lily of Guiana, and the newly discovered Victoria regia, form part of this exquisite group.
All the flowers were modelled separately from white wax, and the colours afterwards superinduced. The bouquet stands six feet in height, and is covered with a bent glass shade. The other model is a group of fruitage, covered with a glass shade more than four feet high, and nearly three feet across, being the largest ever yet blown in England. It was manufactured from designs supplied by Mrs. Peachey herself, and cost £200. Nothing can be more picturesque or artistic than these models: full of wonderful detail which it is impossible to pursue, and implying a marvellous amount of labour and ingenuity, they lead us to regret that any misunderstanding should have led to their absence from the Crystal Palace.—Illustrated London News.