Handel Festival

(wreath which reads: 'Sacred Harmonic Society')
Crystal Palace, June 1862

Bookmark with words and image of wreath surrounding words and harp

image acknowledged to Eric
Quayle's book
"The Collector's Book
of Books"

HANDEL
FESTIVAL

image of
gold laurel leaf wreath
surrounding ribbon with words:

SACRED HARMONIC SOCIETY

which itself surrounds image
of lyre

CRYSTAL
PALACE

JUNE
1862

additional images of the same ribbons, all woven in different coloured silk:

same bookmark with blue background colour

the image of this bookmark
kindly donated by
The Herbert Art Gallery & Museum, Coventry

13.0cm long by 3.2cm wide

Blue
Green
Red
Grey
Burgandy
White

Signed:
T.STEVENS MANF=R
COVENTRY
on back at top turnover.

Stevens logo on the reverse top turn-over of this bookmark

From research conducted by a member of the Stevengraph Collectors Association it was believed that the organisers of the Festival contracted Stevens to produce five different coloured "Badges" to be worn by the singers. The individual colours denoted the different singers, i.e. one for the Bass, one for the Tenors etc..
In the images above, it can be seen there are so far recorded six different colours. I have been unable to find any details of which colours were allocated to which singers, and it is also possible one of more colour related to other non-singers.

As well as individual badges for each singer, the stewards also had a badge, with slightly different design, and these are recorded as sb872 on this site.

This page was created on 28 November 2004
image of green bookmark added 3 June 2007, and blue image 23 February 2016. Grey background image added 24 August 2017.
Blue image replaced, and burgandy image added 30 January 2018. Burgandy image replaced with improved version 2 June 2020. White image added 1 January 2021. Blue image again replaced 15 June 2024

copyright

Reference Number:-	Darby Number:-	Godden Number:-
sb 868	116	463

Size of Silk:	13.0cm long by 3.2cm wide
Alternative back-ground colours:	Blue Green Red Grey Burgandy White
Comments:	Signed: T.STEVENS MANF=R COVENTRY on back at top turnover. Stevens logo on the reverse top turn-over of this bookmark From research conducted by a member of the Stevengraph Collectors Association it was believed that the organisers of the Festival contracted Stevens to produce five different coloured "Badges" to be worn by the singers. The individual colours denoted the different singers, i.e. one for the Bass, one for the Tenors etc.. In the images above, it can be seen there are so far recorded six different colours. I have been unable to find any details of which colours were allocated to which singers, and it is also possible one of more colour related to other non-singers. As well as individual badges for each singer, the stewards also had a badge, with slightly different design, and these are recorded as sb872 on this site.

Handel Festival

(wreath which reads: 'Sacred Harmonic Society') Crystal Palace, June 1862

(wreath which reads: 'Sacred Harmonic Society')
Crystal Palace, June 1862