15 Paintings, British Artists at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century, Edwardian period, with footnotes

The Edwardian era or Edwardian period of British history covers the brief reign of King Edward VII, 1901 to 1910, and is sometimes extended in both directions to capture long term trends from the 1890s to the First World War. The death of Queen Victoria in January 1901 marked the end of the Victorian era. The new king Edward VII was already the leader of a fashionable elite that set a style influenced by the art and fashions of Continental Europe. Samuel Hynes described the Edwardian Era as a “leisurely time when women wore picture hats and did not vote, when the rich were not ashamed to live conspicuously, and the sun really never set on the British flag’”.

Below the upper class, the era was marked by significant shifts in politics among sections of society that had been largely excluded from wielding power in the past, such as common labourers. Women became increasingly politicised…

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