Elves in a Rabbit Warren

Details

Richard Doyle (1824-1883)
Elves in a Rabbit Warren
signed with monogram and indistinctly dated '1875' (lower right)
pencil and watercolour heightened with bodycolour, on paper
12 x 19½ in. (30.5 x 49.5 cm.)

Provenance

E. Joseph.
Anonymous sale; Christie's, London, 27 July 1982, lot 249.

Literature

R. Engen, Richard Doyle, Stroud, 1983, colour pl. V.

Exhibited

Manchester, Royal Jubilee Exhibition, 1887.
Warrington, Loan Exhibition of Paintings, 1898.
Springfield, 1988, no. 12.

Special notice

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price and at 17.5% on the buyer's premium.

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Lot Essay

Dicky Doyle was the one of the foremost illustrators of fairy subjects in this period. His nephew Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was to become a leading figure in the Society for Psychical Research. He joined Punch in 1843 and designed its famous cover and contributed to The Cornhill Magazine from 1863-4. However his reputation as an artist was established in 1877 when he had 17 drawings exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery. His masterpiece is regarded as the book In Fairyland, published in 1870 to which he contributed 36 coloured wood engravings to illustrate the verses of the Pre-Raphaelite poet William Allingham, husband of Helen Allingham (see lot 26).

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