Portrait of Sir Walter Besant, a maquette for publication
c1885. Pen and ink on wove paper, 6 5/8 x 4 3/4 inches (168 x 120 mm), the full sheet. While the ink remains fresh and bold, there is significant natural toning on the paper. Laid down to board.
Walter Besant's 1882 novel All Sorts and Conditions of Men depicted a "Palace of Delight" for the working class in East London. This wasn't just fiction, it actually inspired the creation of the People's Palace (which eventually became Queen Mary University of London).
Jacques Reich was born in Hungary and immigrated to the United States in 1873. He was classically trained, studying at the National Academy of Design in New York and in Paris under the famous academic painter William-Adolphe Bouguereau. He was the primary artist for major reference works of his time, producing over 2,000 portraits for Appleton’s Cyclopædia of American Biography and the majority of portraits for Scribner’s Cyclopedia of Painters and Paintings. Reich’s portraits of Besant were widely distributed in American literary journals and high-end editions of Besant's books.
Item number: 2508
Price: $400.00
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