Ella Condie Lamb: Honeymoon in Europe

Ella Condie Lamb's Sketch of Bruges

"'Before they [Ella and Charles Lamb] were married,' recalled their son, Donald, 'Mother got pneumonia and had taken to bed. A doctor said she ought to have a long sea voyage. They decided to get married and have the sea voyage be their honeymoon. Mother and Father were married right there in her bedroom. They left on their honeymoon and by the time they got back, she was well.'

Their letters back home are laden with historical references and detailed descriptions of all they were seeing in Holland, Belgium, Paris, and London. 'I send you some grasses that you may have part of our wanderings. They are from Egmond and Marken,' she wrote her mother-in-law.

In Bruges, Belgium, Ella made a small sketch of a canal. Beneath are her notations for color: houses - sienna; roofs - red tiles; bridge - warm gray; second house - dark gray sienna; gray sky; walls - yellow gray; distant house - suggestion of purple; dark purple shadow in bridge and walls; changing light on surface of the water - reflections with less color. She was enchanted with the beauty of this 'Venice of the north.' 

In Holland she noted, 'The girls are dressed like their mothers, in many petticoats, thick woolen waists embroidered in high colors... a high white cap that covers all the hair, except a bit that sticks out straight over the forehead, and two long curls, that hang on each side of the face... One woman smiling invited us to inspect her house. It was scrupulously clean with rows of Dutch plate along the walls. Finally the woman sat down and posed while I made a little sketch.'

Of Paris: 'We have seen more art and gotten more ideas in the last week than in a year in New York.'

In London they met up with a number of artists: 'I shall be happy to see you, ' wrote Burne-Jones, and there was a cordial letter from Mary Watts, wife of George Frederick Watts. 'I write to say for him that we are here for the Autumn and shall have much pleasure in showing you and Mrs. Lamb the work now here.' And what could be more English than a cup of tea? Walter Crane wrote from his home in Beaumont Lodge, Shepard's Bush, 'My dear Mr. Lamb, I am glad to hear you are in London and your bride is with you... I should be very pleased to see you both if you could look in some afternoon about 5 and have a cup of tea.'

Charles noted that 'Today we closed our London by calling upon Mr. Alma-Tadema and being received in a royal way - shown all over his London house and studio - and at last being sent off with two etchings and two photos with his signature on each.'

But Ella longed for home. 'We do not think anything we have seen will be pleasanter than the big room at the mountain, with the logs you promised, and the home faces around it.'" And so they returned to the States.

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Ella's Certain Window" by Barea Lamb Seeley.)