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Servant carrying slippers

Maker

(artist)
1872-1898

Title

Date of Production

1893

Medium

pen and black ink on paper, laid down on a green support

Dimensions

Height: 8.8 cm
Width: 8.2 cm

Accession Number

D.1952.RW.4422.2

Mode of Acquisition

Robert Clermont Witt, bequest, 1952

Credit

The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust)

Copyright

Work in the public domain

Location

Not currently on display

Keywords

Label Text

In 1893 Beardsley was invited to produce decorations for Bon-Mots, a series of pocket-size books of sayings of English wits. Free to use his imagination independently of text, he dotted the books with tiny grotesques. These he described as ‘quite mad and a little indecent. Strange hermaphroditic creatures wandering about in Pierrot costumes or modern dress, quite a new world of my own creation.’ His idiosyncratic drawing style, of sinuous lines and solid blacks, was inspired in part by Japanese art.

Notes

Vignette for page 47 of Bon-Mots of Sydney Smith and R. Brinsley Sheridan, edited by Walter Jerrold, published by JM Dent, 1893. This figure appears, with minor variations, in Beardsley's photo-process print The Birthday of Madame Cigale (dated 1893, Victoria and Albert Museum, inv. no. E.450-1899).

Provenance

Julian G. Lousada, London (ca. 1874-1945); his sale, Christie's (London), 30 June 1950, lot 2 (with D.1952.RW.4422.1); purchased there by Colnaghi (London) on behalf of Sir Robert Witt, London (1872-1952), L.2228b; Witt Bequest 1952

Exhibition History

Life, Legend, Landscape - Victorian Drawings and Watercolours, The Courtauld Gallery, London, 17/02/2011-15/05/2011

unnumbered typescript - title was possibly 'A Selection of Drawings from The Witt/Courtauld Collections [as exhibited in 1964 at University of Sussex, Falmer]', Nottingham University, 1966

Literature

Blunt, Anthony, Hand-list of the drawings in the Witt Collection, London, 1956
p. 5

Reade, Brian, Beardsley, Catalogue Raisonne, London, 1967
p. 326
fig. 178

Life, Legend, Landscape: Victorian Drawings & Watercolours, The Courtauld Gallery, 2011
no. 36
ill. on p. 131 ...More

Life, Legend, Landscape - Victorian Drawings and Watercolours, The Courtauld Gallery, 2011
cat. no. 36
ill. on p. 131 ...Less

Inscriptions

Watermark: Watermark: unable to check as is laid down.

Inscription: Recto: centre, pen and ink: artist's motif.

Collector's mark: Mount, Recto: lower left, stamped in black ink: Sir Robert Witt (L.2228b).

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