Where are you going to my pretty maid?

Details

Mervyn Peake (1911-1968)
Where are you going to my pretty maid?
signed 'Peake' (lower right)
black ink and watercolour
10 x 7¼ in. (25.4 x 18.4 cm.)

Provenance

with The Fine Art Society, London, August 1969, where purchased by the present owner.

Literature

Ride a Cock Horse and other Nursery Rhymes, published by Chatto and Windus, 1940.

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis This lot is subject to Collection and Storage charges

Lot Essay

Mervyn Peake's wife, Maeve Gilmour, thought that this publication was the most beautiful of all the books that Peake illustrated and indeed the writer and poet Walter de la Mare commented "most other illustrated books for children look just silly by comparison". In December, 1940 the Times Literary Supplement concluded that "The pretty maid and her questioner have a satirical air of Thackeray".

Christie's are grateful to Sebastian Peake for his assistance in cataloguing this lot.

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