拍品专文
Richard Doyle (1824-1883) was one of the most admired and influential fairy artist-illustrators of his generation. A child prodigy, he joined the staff of Punch in 1843 as its youngest member, and provided inimitable drawings of satirical fairies, gnomes and fantasies for seven years, including its controversial front cover design. The son of the famous political cartoonist 'HB', Dickie Doyle was much admired by the period's finest artists and writers - men such as Thackeray, Dickens and John Ruskin, for whom he illustrated The King of The Golden River.
Doyle began his career as a young boy, and first published a set of comic envelope designs in 1840. He went on to create his masterpiece, In Fairyland, to verses by William Allingham in 1870. A member of a large and talented family, Dickie, along with his brothers Henry (who also became an artist), James (who was an historical artist and heraldrist), Charles (also an artist, and later father to Arthur Conan Doyle), and his two sisters Adelaide (who died in 1844, and who had literary talent), and Annette, all collaborated upon entertainments devised in their Hyde Park nursery. Indeed their father John Doyle was instrumental in developing their talents and insisted each of his six children present him with an illustrated letter recording their daily activities. These form a remarkable record of mid-Victorian life: Dickie's are now in the Pierpont Morgan Library.
It was Dickie and his talented literary sister Adelaide who planned and executed several illustrated book projects (although none were published), she translating the popular classical and romantic tales they both loved. They completed Beauty and the Beast around 1842, the manuscript for which is now in the Fitzwilliam Museum. The present album strongly relates to this work in format, size and style. In addition, Dickie worked with Adelaide on an edition (again unfinished) of Victor Hugo's Le Beau Pecopin et La Belle Bauldour for Le Rhin selections of which were recently sold at auction.
The present work is one of several prepared by Dickie Doyle and his family in the early 1840's (there is a pencil annotated date of 1843 on page 77). It provides a rare opportunity to study the thoroughness and dedication of this talented family. Dickie probably provided most of the text illustrations, Adelaide the text itself while James probably illuminated chapter headings and military scenes. Charles contributed occasional landscapes. It is a remarkable example of teenage precociousness from Dickie's early pencil plans (see the loose preliminary design for page one), to pen and ink and colourful watercolour. Here are the seeds of some of his greatest inventions - the palm trees and swirling fairies for his later 'The Fairy Tree-The Tempest', and the angelic winged sprites adopted in his Dickens illustrations for The Chimes, 1844.
Telemachus was the son of Odysseus, King of Ithaca, and his wife Penelope. Odysseus left for the Trojan wars when Telemachus was still an infant, and in his absence his wife was beseiged by suitors. Concerned by Odysseus's nonappearance for twenty years, Telemachus set out to find him, and on the way had several adventures. Fénélon's version of the romance of 1699, relates how Telemachus was shipwrecked on the island of the goddess Calypso, who had earlier sheltered his father. Calypso, in love with Telemachus, detained him by encouraging him to relate his adventures thus far. Venus sent Cupid to aid her, but Telemachus fell in love with one of Calypso's nymphs, Eucharis. Venus, furious that her plans had been thwarted, incited the nymphs to burn Telemachus's boat, built by the goddess Minerva, disguised as his old guardian Mentor. Telemachus was delighted by this delay to their departure, but Mentor threw him into the sea where they were picked up by a passing ship.
We are grateful to Rodney Engen for his help in preparing this entry.
Doyle began his career as a young boy, and first published a set of comic envelope designs in 1840. He went on to create his masterpiece, In Fairyland, to verses by William Allingham in 1870. A member of a large and talented family, Dickie, along with his brothers Henry (who also became an artist), James (who was an historical artist and heraldrist), Charles (also an artist, and later father to Arthur Conan Doyle), and his two sisters Adelaide (who died in 1844, and who had literary talent), and Annette, all collaborated upon entertainments devised in their Hyde Park nursery. Indeed their father John Doyle was instrumental in developing their talents and insisted each of his six children present him with an illustrated letter recording their daily activities. These form a remarkable record of mid-Victorian life: Dickie's are now in the Pierpont Morgan Library.
It was Dickie and his talented literary sister Adelaide who planned and executed several illustrated book projects (although none were published), she translating the popular classical and romantic tales they both loved. They completed Beauty and the Beast around 1842, the manuscript for which is now in the Fitzwilliam Museum. The present album strongly relates to this work in format, size and style. In addition, Dickie worked with Adelaide on an edition (again unfinished) of Victor Hugo's Le Beau Pecopin et La Belle Bauldour for Le Rhin selections of which were recently sold at auction.
The present work is one of several prepared by Dickie Doyle and his family in the early 1840's (there is a pencil annotated date of 1843 on page 77). It provides a rare opportunity to study the thoroughness and dedication of this talented family. Dickie probably provided most of the text illustrations, Adelaide the text itself while James probably illuminated chapter headings and military scenes. Charles contributed occasional landscapes. It is a remarkable example of teenage precociousness from Dickie's early pencil plans (see the loose preliminary design for page one), to pen and ink and colourful watercolour. Here are the seeds of some of his greatest inventions - the palm trees and swirling fairies for his later 'The Fairy Tree-The Tempest', and the angelic winged sprites adopted in his Dickens illustrations for The Chimes, 1844.
Telemachus was the son of Odysseus, King of Ithaca, and his wife Penelope. Odysseus left for the Trojan wars when Telemachus was still an infant, and in his absence his wife was beseiged by suitors. Concerned by Odysseus's nonappearance for twenty years, Telemachus set out to find him, and on the way had several adventures. Fénélon's version of the romance of 1699, relates how Telemachus was shipwrecked on the island of the goddess Calypso, who had earlier sheltered his father. Calypso, in love with Telemachus, detained him by encouraging him to relate his adventures thus far. Venus sent Cupid to aid her, but Telemachus fell in love with one of Calypso's nymphs, Eucharis. Venus, furious that her plans had been thwarted, incited the nymphs to burn Telemachus's boat, built by the goddess Minerva, disguised as his old guardian Mentor. Telemachus was delighted by this delay to their departure, but Mentor threw him into the sea where they were picked up by a passing ship.
We are grateful to Rodney Engen for his help in preparing this entry.