The book is a hefty tome, with every work in the exhibition illustrated. We come away from reading it knowing and understanding much more about the period and the breadth of the creative output at this time.

The book and exhibition, understandably, have an American slant, which is made easy by the fact that during the Edwardian period no fewer than fifty American women were married to peers of the realm. Furthermore, a number of the artists had American backgrounds; that is to say they had American parents, peripatetic childhoods, and then a career in Britain. Such was the case of James McNeill Whistler (who is represented by Giovanni Boldini’s portrait of him), John Singer Sargent, Edwin Austin Abbey, James Jebusa Shannon, and what we think of as our ‘own’ George W. Lambert, as well as the photographer Alvin Langdon Coburn.

The book includes a number of glamorous society portraits such as Sargent’s Sir Frank Swettenham (1904) and Boldini’s 1903 Portrait of a lady (Mrs Lionel Phillips). There is also some history painting, and a smattering of modest landscapes. By and large, though, it is the photography, decorative arts, and fashion items which shine, and which introduce new ideas into the discussion of the period.

Among the precious items is the magnificent gown worn by the American-born Lady Curzon, made by the House of Worth (with Mughal-inspired embroidery) during her time as the vicereine of India. It embodies, as Andrea Wolk Rager suggests, ‘all the splendour and magnificence of the British empire in an exotic reverie’. Jewels, from Cartier to DeBeers, indicate the use of colonial resources with the simultaneous growth of a market for luxury goods. There are diamond-encrusted tiaras and coronets, a fern-spray brooch by Cartier and elegant fans. These reflect the mining of rubies and the farming of ostriches in Africa – products of British imperialism. The Manchester Tiara, fashioned by Cartier, further points to the American connections, having belonged to Cuban-American-born Consuelo, Duchess of Manchester, who, Angus Trumble informs us, was ‘one of the most prominent of the fifty American ladies in the British peerage at the turn of the century’.

Generally, the exhibition and book are divided into historical themes relating to the period, such as ‘Imperial Splendour’ suggesting the reach of the British empire at this time, or ‘Town’ and ‘Country’, exploring some of the ways artists depicted the cosmopolitan city of London, as well as their interests in ‘New Pastoralism’ and the seaside as a place of play. But there are other groupings, such as ‘Grand Design’, which includes such things as beautifully designed bell pushes studded with gemstones and embellished with gold fashioned by Fabergé for the newly electrified system at Buckingham Palace. There are also the architectural designs for the Ritz Hotel, and astonishing copper, brass, and white metal bath taps embossed with seashells, Greek nymphs, and naked boys for a modern house equipped with hot and cold running water.

Her Serene Highness Princess Henry of Pless, 1901 (photograph by James Stack Lauder [James Lafayette], Victoria and Albert Museum, Lafayette Studio Archive)

There are a stream of photographs included under the titles of ‘The Great World’ and ‘Men of Mark’, images of society belles selected from an enormous archive of a photographer’s busy West End studio, as well as ‘artistic’ photographs by Alvin Langdon Coburn and others. There are some rare and impressive autochromes by the banker Lionel Nathan de Rothschild of languorous young women and Edward VII in a kilt. These demonstrate the key role that photography had during the period in spreading the image of eminent Edwardians.

Occasionally, consideration is given to connections between artists, such as that between William Orpen, Augustus John, and William Nicholson. The authors consider the ways in which the male artists may have used the mythological subjects of Circe and Lamia as a way in which to confront women’s suffrage and guard against the threat of the temptress and the femme fatale. They also consider the growing sense of doubt, uncertainty, and anxiety during this period, as well as the developing threat of war with Germany, and how this was expressed in art.

There are 115 catalogue entries in the book, each with a descriptive paragraph. Indeed, more than half the book consists of such material. Sometimes, supporting images accompany the principal work, and these provide insights into it. For instance, Sargent’s portrait of the Duchess of Devonshire (1902) shows her as a rather plain woman, but not as much so as the contemporary photograph of her, and in that way shows how the artist applied his art to improve her presence (as well as by posing her with echoes of van Dyck).

The works have ties to more than a dozen countries beyond Britain, including Australia and New Zealand, reflecting the reach of the British Empire at that time. Of particular Australian interest are the two Charles Conder silk fan designs and the nine magnificently restored silk panel paintings commissioned to decorate Siegfried Bing’s Maison de l’Art Nouveau in Paris (from the Yale University Art Collection). They are displayed and published for the first time in more than one hundred years. Also included are two works by Bertram Mackennal: one of the maquettes for Circe, and his splendid 1899 marble of Melba (from the National Gallery of Victoria’s collection). There is also Lambert’s Mr John Proctor and Miss Alison Preston on Mearbeck Moor placed alongside Furse’s Diana of the Uplands (a work which Lambert greatly admired, as did most of the Edwardian artists).

The authors assert that the era was one characterised by tensions and dualities: tradition and technology, languor and speed, conservatism and progressivism. They argue that one of the dominant themes of the period was a sense of nostalgia, and that this is also a major thread between the essays in the book. Elizabeth C. Mansfield, for instance, suggests that the Edwardian interest in earlier art, and particularly that of the eighteenth century was a nostalgic one. Tim Barringer argues that the Edwardian interest in the English rural landscape and folk culture and the creation of a ‘new pastoralism’ was a nostalgic result of rapid urbanisation and technological change.

The work of the Camden Town Group, the new movement of the period, has a presence in the paintings of Malcolm Drummond, Harold Gilman, Charles Ginner, and Walter Sickert. Their work presents quite a different vision from that of Sargent and Boldini, showing ordinary men and women in St James’s Park, or watching a performance at a music hall – and in this way hint at the emancipation of the middle and working classes.

The authors appear to want to ‘evoke’ the period, rather than to concern themselves with artistic approaches (with the exception of the discussion of the ‘Ancien Régime’ and a small segment on ‘problem pictures’). For this reason, the artists’ broader interests in ‘appropriation’ (of which an interest in the ‘Ancien Régime’ was just a part) or ‘decoration’ are not referred to (Sargent’s portrait of Sir Frank Swettenham is an instance of ‘appropriation’ and the Conder silks examples of ‘decoration’).

Overall, the book brings to life the period and the forces which shaped it. And it illustrates the riches of the era, through a somewhat nostalgic eyeglass.