YANKEE GIRLS IN ZULULAND(1888),by Louise Vescelius Shendon
I am writing the first book from the American point of view about 19th century rotunda panoramas.These were the biggest paintings in the world,50 x 400=20,000 square feet, housed in their own rotundas which were 16-sided polygons. Chicago in 1893 had 6 panorama companies and 6 panorama rotundas.
In December 1880 the VESCELIUS TRIO,three singing sisters from America, would come to South Africa.They were Anna Louise Vescelius Sheldon,Anna Augusta Vescelius and Rebecca Frances "Frank" Vescelius. Frank was an invalid with lung problems, so the trip to South Africa was an attempt to cure her. At length Frank met Edward James Austen (1850-1930), an artist attached to the LONDON GRAPHIC who came to SA to find Livingston, and to "make pictures".Austen would be in SA for 8 years, had fought in the first Boer War, but I know nothing more about these years. Austen and Frank married, and daughter Ethel Vescelius Austen in Kimberly. The Vescelius Trio and E.J.Austen formed an "opera company" featuring music and comedy in South Africa. By 1885 this family group returned to America. Austen and Frank produced childrens books, and Austen and sister in law Louise produced non fiction books.Austen would also work for important panorama enterprises, and had his own important panorama enterprise. I would like to know more about Austen-Vescelius in South Africa 1880-5.