Woman in Love

Lady Ottoline Morrell- George Charles Beresford
platinotype on photographer's grey card, 4 June 1903,4 1/4 in. x 5 5/8 in. (107 mm x 144 mm) image size
Purchased with help from the Friends of the National Libraries and the Dame Helen Gardner Bequest, 2003,NPG x144140

"now she came along, with her head held up.balancing an enormous flat hat of pale yellow velvet, on which were streaks of ostrich feathers, natural and grey. She drifted forward as if scarcely conscious, her long blanched face lifted up, not to see the world. She was rich. She wore a dress of silky, frail velvet, of pale yellow colour, and she carried a lot of small rose-coloured cyclamens. Her Shoes and stockings were brownish grey, like the feathers on her hat, her hair was heavy, she drifted along with a peculiar fixity of the hips, a strange unwilling motion... She was a woman of the new school, full of intellectuality, and heavy, nerve-worn with consciousness. She was passionately interested in reform, her soul was given up to the public cause. But she was a man's woman, it was the manly world that held her."    

- dh lawrence, from women in love

Ottoline by George Charles Beresford

platinum print on photographer's card mount, 4 June 19035 7/8 in. x 4 1/4 in. (147 mm x 107 mm)
Purchased with help from the Friends of the National Libraries and the Dame Helen Gardner Bequest, 2003

Yes, he -her great friend-had characterized her. she admired him and he was fascinated with her- especially her lineage, her wealth-as he saw it and her- as a woman. The Woman was not pleased. Other authors-her friends- would write about her. She was a character in many ways to them- irresistible as a player in their stories, novels.She was unique, an Original and she was a woman-less DH Lawrence's making  & more her own.


Ottoline's portraits can be found at the NPG, here