JESSIE BAYES (1876-1970) §
I SING OF ENGLAND: ARTS & CRAFTS ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT, EARLY 20TH CENTURY
£4,750
Auction: Day One: 21 April 2021 | From 11:00
Description
watercolour, bodycolour, pen and ink on vellum with gold embellishments, inscribed to one page WRITTEN AND ILLUMINATED BY JESSIE BAYES, and comprising five illuminated pages on three folded sheets, unbound, each page approx. 27.5cm x 21cm, contained within card folder with applied label inscribed I SING OF ENGLAND/ BY ROBERT OF GLOUCESTER/JESSIE BAYES/82 FELLOWS ROAD/LONDON NW'
Footnote
Provenance: From Castle of Park, Aberdeenshire
Note: Jessie Bayes, best known for her remarkable book illuminations, was born into a family of artists in 1876. Her father Alfred Walter Bayes was an etcher and book illustrator who regularly exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts and encouraged his four children in the arts from an early age. She studied under her brother Walter Bayes, who was a well-known artist and critic at the time and was sister to the sculptor Gilbert Bayes and the painter Emmeline Bayes.
Bayes exhibited widely with the Arts & Crafts Exhibition Society, and at the Royal Academy and the Baillie Gallery in London. In 1922, Bayes exhibited some of her illuminated books, as well as paintings on vellum, fans, and panels, at the Art Center in New York. She gradually expanded her repertoire to include painted and gilded decoration on furniture as well as interior design and stained-glass work.