#William Frederick Yeames

[life-imitates-art-far-more]

William Frederick Yeames (1835-1918) "And When Did You Last See Your Father?" (1878) Oil on canvas Located in the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, England The oil-on-canvas painting, depicts a scene in an imaginary Royalist household during the English Civil War. The Parliamentarians have taken over the house and question the son about his Royalist father (the man lounging on a chair in the centre of the scene is identifiable as a Roundhead officer by his military attire and his orange sash).

Yeames was inspired to paint the picture to show the crises that could arise from the natural frankness of young children. Here, if the boy tells the truth he will endanger his father, but if he lies he will go against the ideal of honesty undoubtedly instilled in him by his parents.

The boy in the picture is based on Thomas Gainsborough's painting The Blue Boy. It was modelled by Yeames's nephew, James Lambe Yeames. Behind the boy, there is a girl, probably the daughter, waiting her turn to be questioned. The girl was based on Yeames's niece, Mary Yeames. At the back of the hall at left the mother and elder daughter wait anxiously on the boy's reply.

The scene is neutral: while the innocence of the boy is emphasized by his blond hair, open expression and blue suit, the questioners are also treated sympathetically; the main interrogator has a friendly expression, and the sergeant with the little girl has his arm on her shoulder as if comforting her.

[mysterious-secret-garden]

William Frederick Yeames - The Death of Amy Robsart, 1878.

[edwardian-girl-next-door]

~ William Frederick Yeames, "At the Opera" (1867), detail

crop by historicalbeauty

[random-brushstrokes]

William Frederick Yeames - Amy Robsart (ca. 1877)

Yeames was clearly fascinated by the intrigue surrounding Amy Robsart's death and may have been familiar with Sir Walter Scott's version of the incident, as recounted in Kenilworth (1831). When the picture was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1877 he included a lengthy explanation of the work's historical background in the catalogue. This took the form of an extract from a History of Berkshire by John Aubrey (1626-97):

"Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, being the great favourite of the Queen Elizabeth, it was thought she would have made him her husband; to this end, to free himself of all obstacles, he had his wife, Amy Robsart, conveyed to the solitary house of Cumnor Hall, in Berkshire, inhabited by Anthony Forster, his servant. This same Forster, in compliance with what he well knew to be the Earl's wishes, came with others in the dead of night to the lady's bedchamber and stifled her in bed, and flung her downstairs, thereby believing the world would have thought it a mischance, and so blinded their villainy; and the morning after, with the purpose that others should know of her end, did Forster, on pretence of carrying out some behest of the Countess, bring a servant to the spot where the poor lady's body lay at the foot of the stairs."

The woman's body lies bathed in light, her cloak romantically arranged across the bottom steps of the staircase. She appears less the bruised and battered victim of a vile murder than a seductive sleeping beauty. The devious Forster leads his manservant down the back stairs from the bedroom above. The latter is clearly horrified by the sight of the dead woman, and Forster pushes him back, for fear that he might discover the actual method of her death. (source)

[reinhardhohn]

Los primeros y los últimos.

[goylefriend]

yeah…

[six-sanguine-wings]

"Égalité, Équité, Amour"

Arlecchino x Fem!Menstruating!Reader ❗NS//FW! MDNI❗

W/C: 1.8k

Amy Robsart  exhibited 1877  William Frederick Yeames  1835-1918  Presented by the Trustees of the Chantrey Bequest 1877 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/N01609

From a sea of swelling sanguine tears and a bludgeoning ache in your belly, you wonder if your body is cursing you for being a woman.

At the foot of a stair flight, you lay with your arms encircling your belly and your fingers clawing into the guipure and silk of your nightgown as though your nails could bite away the gnawing agony in your uterus. 

Dawn mounts the skies, dying the unreachable tent into a blur of mellow hues but even as young sunlight reaches your eyes, the moon persists, full and beautiful and snide, reeling the tides into its reign. And there you remain, defeated, a sitting duck to this awful gory orbit, groaning amidst the quietude and weeping into your hair—a mess of locks strewn about the cold ground—collapsed as if you’re prostrating yourself at the heels of the moon’s grandeur.

How cruel.

Grueling and sordid.

Blood leaks into the kerchief between your legs. Carnage stains are a trifle amid the ravage in your stomach. 

You hardly hear stilettos clicking nearby, barely sense a towering figure hover above you, and then lean in close, charcoal-red irises probing into your form, sharp hands sweeping your tresses away from your tear-soaked eyes,, then a familiar scent enveloping your senses: traces of sweet vanilla, red clover, incense smoke, ash and iron…

“Oh ma chérie,” she mutters into your ear, voice slow and temperate. “menstrual pains again?”

For a fleeting moment you think an angel is whispering, and then you chuckle wearily at the thought.

“What made it obvious?” You don’t notice how fragile your voice is.

“I notice what you think I don’t.” You want to ask her for an example, and she knows, so Arlecchino presses on. “Such as when you sent yourself tumbling down the stairs.” She motions towards the steep bane of your existence wih a succint swoop of her hand. “Count your blessings that you didn’t wake the others within the house. The children… Don’t take kindly to interrupted mornings. As you know well.” 

Arlecchino weaves derision into her voice with such measured intent that you have to strain your ears to hear it amongst the sore ebb and flow in your low abdomen. Dropping your mirthelss half-smile, you hum, hollowly.

“The Knave is sharp, and impartial so long as her children are concerned; or so she is reputed. If that is so, you would leave me here but…” Arlecchino steps forth just as you say this, cutting your sunlight sparse and scooping you into her clutch with one arm hooked hunder your knees and the other locked around your upper back. She lingers here, with you against her chest, for a moment. “...You won't.”

Arlecchino smiles, ambiguous. "Fille futé.”

Cogency coming in shallow waves, you sparsely remember the trek back upstairs, only the warmth around your limbs and the familiar light notes accompanying it—sweet vanilla, red clover, incense smoke, ash and iron…

Within the quiet comfort where your bedroom once was, Arlecchino draws the drapes closed, provides you a clean cotton cloth to change into, then another, heated wool towel for your stomach. Forever incomplete, it soothes away the ache and leaves behind your woes. 

When she lays you in a bed made surprisingly of fresh sheets and new quilts, Arlecchino strokes her black thumb across your cheek, slow and tentative; unwilling to part but moving gingerly. She always touches you like your skin is glass. Eyes of charcoal and blood rove every part of you but elude your own gaze. You watch her from below—you always find yourself below her—in silence, watch her eyes, their beautifully anomalous quality and the permanent tiredness hanging in light bags beneath them—and pore over her swelling temptation as she studies the loose slip of your nightgown’s strap, the way gauze creases and bends where your curves pull together, how silk falls upon your skin like dew on an untouched leaf…

…And like a soaring bug, she finds you, lands on you, her tinted lips sealing yours. 

Peruere doesn’t kiss you weakly—she is never weak, but composite, like a fine Inazuman blade with soft and hard steel that could cut through a God. You learned that about her, though not easily. Her lips move, taking yours in their delicate, careful hold. She’s so light that you hardly notice when you push her away, only the empy coldness left behind.

“I shouldn’t—we shouldn’t be doing this again.” Your words come in feverish, dubious drawls. 

“And why is that?” 

“Can’t you control yourself, Knave?”

“I can’t control you. ” Can’t control you from provoking me. 

“Oh, Have I defeated the undefeatable fourth?” You laugh wryly. Her hand comes to rest on your clothed, tender, swollen breast. A spark ignites in your sore belly, sending flames high into your cheeks, then the bleeding space between your thighs. You press them together. Peruere squeezes your mound decisively. 

Like anger, lust makes us wreckless. 

In the delirious moments that follow, Peruere discards your layered panties, pushes the laced hem of your skirt to your hips, and finds your sensitive, bloodied slit with her cold, slender, sharp fingers. Two roll your blood-soaked clit ruthlessly and you gasp, digging your incisor into your lip to stifle yourself.

It’s befitting, really: in pleasuring you, keeping you placated and docile, Perrie soils her hands, coats them in carnage.

“Whatever is the matter, ma chérie?” Arlecchino coos, revoking her touch and letting you burn to nothing. “You were so chatty not a moment ago.”

“You change your mind quickly, hm?” Your words slur together. “‘Father’isn’t as stern as she acts. I thought her ‘children’ were all e-equals, and yet— a-ah…"

Arlecchino pushes two fingers into your wet tightness, killing your words aptly.  The way she moves provokes you slowly, digits curving into the places you're sensitive to, igniting your every nerve and setting your skin aflame. 

“I should find a better use for that tongue you love to run,” Arlecchino mulls darkly, when her thumb finds your clit and you whine. She's moving quicker, pushing you harder, your heaving breaths coming in an arrhythmic chorus of gasps, clumsily shaped around her name. Ringing builds in your ears and tears blend your vision into a diaphanous blur; you think you hear an insidious,  scornful remark, the subtle tut-tut of a clicking tongue. Soon, a familiar, sweltering knot twists your stomach. It's bashful, delirious and sensational, convulsing and building and trudging and trudging and—

—The Knave pulls away and you falter into an incompete pile of ash.

“It will come off", Arlecchino tells you, apropos of the red spot soiling your dainty nightgown. It isn't what worries you.

“And if it doesn't?” You ask, somewhat indifferent, as you peel away another layer of her suit. It isn't the first time you've done this, but in a sobering, momentary thought, you find yourself uncertain. Of this intimacy, of this miserable affection which tethers you to the Father of the Hearth. As you work away the buttons on her blouse, she rests her hand on the small of your back as if to quell your nascent thoughts, to do what she would never in the presence of her ‘children’—touch you, kiss you, show you undeserving care, and cause you to pine for these affections, a craving that crashes upon you in waves, not unlike your menstrual pains, until you collapse.

“Then I'll buy you a new one—a better one.” 

You wrestle with the knot that secures her pretty black panties, entranced by the tantalizing wetness beneath. 

“I hope you aren't underestimating your ‘children’,” you say in retrospective consideration.  Arlecchino pushes your back to the mattress, now a tempest of curled sheets. 

“I never do.” 

“I see.”

You writhe and Peruere groans when she slides herself between your parted legs. From the position that she leaves you in, you can study her countenance perfectly, pore over the lust pooling in her bleeding twin charcoal eyes, find that it matches your own. Then she moves her vulva against yours, her clit abusing your own in an incessant rhythm. She holds nothing back, and somehow you feel small like this—held captive beneath her, as though you're incarcerated, if not by her arms then by the desire that seems to adhere you at the meeting between your thighs. Your voice comes in a strangled chain of moans but Arlecchino catches your lips in hers, promptly stifling you.

“What is it…” you pant, voice muffled between smothering kisses, “that keeps bringing you back to me when you say you know better?”

Lust is too superficial a word but love is too demanding, too hopeful. 

“It's… the same reason why you let me come back.” Temptation, fondness? What an elusive answer. “I've seen the way you stare at me, ma belle, even when you fancy I don't.” (“I notice what you think I don't”—her words bounce across the walls of your psyche like a malicious echo.) 

At times you wonder if Arlecchino can hear your thoughts—she pulls your low neckline below your breasts and kneads your flesh in an avaricious hand. You sigh into her open clavicle. 

“I hate secrets, you know.” Which is ironic because what is the Knave besides an assimilation of secrets? 

"Then you should know better than to love me.”

“I don't love you…” 

“No,” Arlecchino piches your nipple as she says this, twisting it to the frail threshold of pleasure and pain. “But you crave me.”

Your lips part to release a retort but Arlecchino promptly silences you in a sweeping kiss. She's far from forbearing this time, stabbing her teeth into your bottom lip so that you shed a sonorous cry and a blood beadlet. You can't blame her—flames are vicious, born to consume, scalding away your pains and your woes and the remnants of your self until all that remains is a heap of ash and bones bearing your extinct legacy. 

Her tongue tangles with yours, burning the taste of her flesh into your palate: sweet vanilla, red clover, incense smoke, ash and iron… 

Arlecchino is the son et lumiére she casts and the shadows that dance at their feet. 

You smile.

She calls your first name. 

"Come with me, ma chèrie,” Peruere moves faster now, more erratically, like she’s desperate to choke you of the life in your lungs. And you don’t resist her because…

I want you to hold me like this.

A fire ignites your soul that the oceans cannot temper, beginning at the junction between your thighs and stretching to your overwrought heart.

In the final intimate moment you share with a woman so forbidden, you both stumble and fall into the fell clutch of ecstasy, wrapped in a lover's embrace.

The next thing you care enough to remember, the horrible ache in your womb is gone, and so is Peruere.

But as the wretched blood moon, you know she will return. 

It brings you a strange comfort. 

Ao3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/59864137

[lightthereis]

By William Frederick Yeames

[art-centric]

William Frederick Yeames

[steliosagapitos]

"Cherry Ripe" by William Frederick Yeames.

[nakdraws]

cordelia (me, 2022) vs cordelia (william frederick yeames, 1888)

[animar64]

Dream Job

William Frederick Yeames, A Visit to the Haunted Chamber; 1869 If I had to pick a job to do for just one day I would chose to be a  Paranormal Investigator. That’s right I would love to be a Ghost Hunter. I would love to wear the cool black t-shirt with my crew’s names stamped across my chest in white letters ( all the better to find me in the dark if something goes wrong I guess) and have my…

[mysterious-secret-garden]

William Frederick Yeames - The Death of Amy Robsart, 1877.

[harpyartgallery]

William Frederick Yeames (British, 1835 - 1818)

Staunch Friends, 1859

[clarky1970]

William Frederick Yeames - And when did you last see your father?

[maypoleman1]

8th September

Ghostly September

Amy Robshart by William Frederick Yeames (1877). Source: Tate website

On this day in 1560, the body of Amy Robshart was discovered at the foot of a flight of stairs at Cumnor Place, Oxfordshire, dead from a broken neck. Amy was the wife of Robert Dudley, a court favourite of Queen Elizabeth I. Whereas the death could have been the result of an unfortunate accident, suspicion fell on her husband who was exonerated at the subsequent inquiry. The semi-scandal did not do him any harm as Elizabeth later made him Earl of Leicester. However Amy was not content to leave things there. Dudley was confronted by his wife’s ghost at Cornbury Park and she told him matter of factly that he would die within ten days. Sure enough the terrified Dudley did just that. Amy did not rest in peace after this however. Despite despite an attempted exorcism in 1810, she continues to haunt both Cumnor Place and Cornbury Park, and if you spot her there, your death is imminent.

On this day in 1705, in Canterbury in Kent, a Mrs Bargrave received an unexpected visit from her friend Mrs Veal, who made an unusual request. Mrs Veal asked Mrs Bargrave if she would mind procuring a grave stone for her deceased mother and to ensure enough space was left on the stone for her own name to be added. Mrs Bargrave agreed to the request but remained puzzled as to why Mrs Veal could not arrange the purchase herself. She soon found out: Mrs Veal had died in Dover the previous day. Mrs Bargrave followed through on the ghostly request and her friend’s phantom was never seen again.