The Magnificent Moore Sisters

May and Mina Moore photographed many famous Edwardians, including Thea Proctor, Lily Brayton and Adeline Genee.  The ambitious sisters were noted for their dramatic portraits and their use of the Rembrandt effect - this was photographing portraits with a pencil of light on one side and the rest in shadow.

Born in New Zealand, the sisters were the daughters of a farmer and sawyer and his wife.  May always wanted to study art, and she attended the Elam School of Art and Design in Auckland.  She began selling pencil sketches, but she eventually set up a photography studio in Wellington.

Mina became a schoolteacher, but she started to like photography during a trip to Australia.  She helped May in her studio in Wellington, and studied the art carefully.

Eventually, the sisters established studios in Sydney and Melbourne.  They specialised in photographing people from the world of the theatre and artists.  They also held theatrical soirees that were extremely popular.  At first, the sisters couldn't afford a big light-filled studio with glass windows and walls, so they used the meagre light from ordinary windows, ad photographed people against a simple cloth background.

May was probably the most famous sister.  Six feet tall and good-looking, she continued with her photography even after she married the dentist Henry Hammond Wilkes. He gave up his practice to help her in her studio.

Mina married William Tainsh, a company secretary and poet.  The couple had two daughters, and Mina also continued to work after her marriage.

The Symbol of the "Naughty Nineties"

Fire engines raced to the scene.  The young Prince of Wales and his friend, the Duke of Sutherland, were on one one of them.  They enjoyed the scene immensely as the horses were made to go faster and faster through the busy London streets of 1865.

Unfortunately, they couldn't save The Eldorado, a music-hall and restaurant.  Nineteen years later, a new music-hall replaced the old theatre.  Designed by Thomas Verity, an acclaimed theatre designer, the Empire Theatre in Leicester Square was to become one of the most famous music-halls.  It had a grand opening with Chilperic by Florimund Horne. It was also the site of the opening of the Lumiere Cinematrographe in 1896.

The music-hall was especially noted for its ballets.  Such eminent ballerinas as Adeline Genee appeared there.  Madame Katti Lanner, an Austrian dancer, ran a dance troupe.  The management even travelled to St.Petersburg to acquire new talent.

Unfortunately, the ballet stars were usually members of variety shows.  For example, one evening's entertainment included a juggler, a trapeze-swinging poodle and a contortionist.  This was not the only problem encountered by the girls who appeared in the ballet.  In those days,  actresses and girls in the ballet often had a bad reputation.  They were regarded as "easy game" by the young men of the town.  One MP, a Mr Winterbotham, later complained that dancers often became prostitutes.

The promenade at the back of the dress circle in the theatre was apparently notorious and the reason why the Empire Theatre was considered "the symbol of the Naughty Nineties". Prostitutes and courtesans strolled here hoping to attract the attention of the young aristocrats and dandies.  Winston Churchill wrote that "they also from time to time refreshed themselves with alcoholic liqueurs".  These scenes would result in a great scandal - the subject of my next post.