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Notes:
Provenance:
The property of a gentleman;
Christies London, 26th October 1982, lot 76.
Exhibited:
New York, Gallery of Modern Art, Aubrey Beardsley, 1867, no. 81.
Literature:
Brian Reade, Beardsley (London 1967), no. 108, pl. 106.
Kenneth Clark, The best of Aubrey Beardsley, (London 1979), no. 81.
Published:
Sir Thomas Mallory, Le Morte Darthur, Book IX, Chapter X, (1893-4)
As Kenneth Clark said of the present lot: 'To date Morte Darthur drawings on stylistic grounds would be a lengthy, inconclusive task. But this, although it appears in the first volume, would seem to be one of the latest. It shows a sense of space rare in his early work; and the geometric lines of le Beale Isould's cloak anticipate drawings like The Spinister's Scrip. The huge black chevelure is said by Brian Reade to have been originally linear, but this would have been much less effective. It is the windows made from the bottoms of glasses, a favorite architectural device of Art Nouveau'.υ1
1. Kenneth Clarke, The best of Aubrey Beardsley, (London 1979),p. 60.
