THE CRADLE OF OUR LORD

ALLEN, Daphne (illustrator); OXENHAM, John:

Editore: London: Headley Bros., 1916

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First edition. Octavo. Re-bound in early twentieth-century textured brown paper-covered boards with small watercolour paper onlay depicting oranges to the upper board. Illustrated with 3 tipped-in colour plates, 2 tipped-in monochrome plates, 4 full-page sepia drawings and several headers and tailpieces. 32pp. A very good copy, the binding square and firm with a couple of small splash marks to the edges of the upper board and a little wear to the spine ends and corners. The contents with the occasional spot of light foxing and a little creasing to the corner of a couple of the tipped-in plates are otherwise in very good order. An uncommon work by the Edwardian child artist Daphne Allen (1899-1985), published when she was 17 years old, in which she beautifully illustrates the religious poetry of John Oxenham (pen name of William Arthur Dunkerley). As the publisher's note declares: "In this little booklet [Allen] has found an ideal subject for her art, and in Mr. John Oxenham an ideal interpreter". Born in Stamford Hill, London, Allen was taught painting from an early age by her father, the artist Hugh Allen (son of the publisher George Allen), and also took life-classes in Chelsea. She began showing her work at the age of 12, holding her first exhibitions at the Dudley Gallery, which coincided with the publication of her first two books, A Child's Visions (1912) and The Birth of the Opal (1913). She went on to exhibit with the Society of Women Artists, at the Burlington Gallery, St. Paul's Deanery, and the Drummond Gallery, also becoming a member of the Royal Society of Painters in Watercolours and the Streatham Society. Focussing mainly on painting and drawing fairies and spiritual subjects, in addition to illustrating her own books, Allen also provided drawings for numerous other poetic and religious works of the period, had prints of her paintings published by the Medici Society, and worked for many magazines, including The Illustrated London News, The Sketch, and The Tatler. In 1919 Allen exhibited alongside the Glasgow School artist Annie French (1872-1965) at the Burlington Gallery, and it can certainly be observed that her aesthetic resembles that of French, and of contemporary Art Nouveau illustration more broadly; with her delicate line and ethereal atmosphere, The Graphic was as bold as to call Allen the "little girl who rivals William Blake".

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• Titolo: THE CRADLE OF OUR LORD
• Editore: London: Headley Bros.
• Data di pubblicazione: 1916
• Rilegatura: Rilegato
• Edizione: prima edizione