packing like Ottoline

as a young woman traveling to italy- Ottoline writes in her memoirs:





I had also another brilliant idea, which was to put strong pockets all around the thick, full, red cape I wore, into which I packed a rampart of books. It made my cape extraordinarily heavy, and I had to walk with the utmost balance and care not to fall over. It was surprising and rather hard to anyone whom I happened to knock against. *



She filled the cape pockets with volumes of Ruskin.
Ottoline continued to have a thing for capes-Ruskin, I'm not sure.




paintings:
Saint Fabiola- or girl in a red cape by Henner,  Henner assemblage by Francis Alÿs- a collection of nearly identical paintings and other reproductions of 4th century Saint Fabiola from the nineteenth century by the French artist Jean-Jacques Henner
* probably around 1895.
all Ruskin here at the Ruskin library