SELWYN IMAGE (1849-1930) FOR THE FITZROY PICTURE SOCIETY
‘THE ANNUNCIATION’ FRAMED POSTER, CIRCA 1893
£5,000
Auction: 10 October 2018 at 11:00 BST
Description
chromolithograph, bears artist’s initials SI, and maker’s marks PUBLISHED BY THE FITZROY PICTURE SOCIETY, 20 FITZROY ST. LONDON. W. COPYRIGHT REGD./ JAMES AKERMAN PHOTO-CHROMO-LITH. LONDON. W.C.
117cm x 78cm
Footnote
Provenance: Paul Reeves, London
Literature: The Studio Yearbook, 1893, p. 29 illus.;
Tilbrook, Adrian J., and Fischer, 'Fine Art Truth, Beauty and Design: Victorian, Edwardian and Later Decorative Art', 1986, pp. 49-50, no. 113 illus.
Note: Selwyn Image attended Marlborough College and the New College, Oxford in 1868 where he studied drawing under John Ruskin. Intending to enter the clergy and follow his father as Vicar of Bodiam, Image took Holy Orders at the age of 24. He was ordained deacon in 1872, and priest the next year. He was a curate at Tottenham and later at St. Anne's, Soho. Image began studying art with A. H. Mackmurdo and Ruskin's assistant, Arthur Burgess, in 1880. Image was dismissed from the clergy in 1882 and in 1884 designed the cover of 'The Hobby Horse', the Century Guild magazine. In 1893 along with Mackmurdo, Christopher Whall and Heywood Sumner, he assisted in forming the Fitzroy Picture Society, which aimed to disseminate religious values using colour and decoration. The present lot is from the ‘Jesus Hominum Salvator’ series by Image of which this poster, ‘The Annunciation’, was the only one published.