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Object No. 11 has been seen often in several exhibitions but it remains a firm favourite and was chosen as the Head’s choice in 2016 for this exhibition.
Sunday Morn in Lower Large is one of a small collection of photographs from the 1890s taken by an unknown photographer. This particular image provides a unique glimpse of boarding life in the 19th century and the popularity of this image is easy to understand.
It must surely have been a spontaneous photograph but the composition is almost painterly: the shaft of morning sunlight cutting through the grainy shadows highlights the white nightshirts, and the patterned quilts and rumpled piles of clothes add texture and depth to the grim starkness.
The direct gaze of those sitting on the cramped beds contrasts with the sleepy looks of companions tucked beneath the bedclothes but all the boys are looking directly at the viewer, as if crossing the centuries.
Lower Large was originally one of four dormitories created to accommodate 40 boys when School House was built in 1864. Like the others, it is now split into smaller study spaces. However, the corner in which the boys were sitting is easily distinguishable in the photograph on the right. Taken for School House: the same but different, an exhibition in 2014 that celebrated the 150 years since the opening of School House, the 2014 image is itself now an archival photo, recording as it does the room as it was 10 years ago.
