Birthday Party (1936, Beverley Art Gallery) by Fred Elwell, with its grand, dark dresser and display of a valuable china, encapsulates everything that Rhoda in The New House (also 1936) is struggling to escape. It represents Victorian formality when she is seeking the fresh, modern, relaxed style her sister Delia plans to have in her flat with "plain, pale wood...bowls of jade and green, and heaps of cushions, raspberry red, silver green, and the deep, blue-purple of anemones".