Sales catalogue: George F. Kelly

Date:
1901
Reference:
WA/HMM/CM/Sal/52/39
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sales catalogue: George F. Kelly. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    sion. Many of the book-plates by Henry Ospovat contain partly draped figures which are always beautifully drawn, pure and a constant delight. But really, I think it would jar me to meet even an angel —the same one, mind you—#in each of a thousand volumes. Emil Orlak, in Austria, has made some fairly pleasing nudes, []. £ but they lack that purity of concep- ff tion without which they are common. Armand Rassenfosse, of Belgium, has etched a number of dainty, fault- lessly drawn and really most beautiful nudes, but many of them have been ruined by the needless addition of ‘ shoes and fancy head-dresses. Pal de Mont, of Antwerp, has a plate by Edmond van Oppel which he prob- ably thinks a work of art, but which is surely the height of vulgarity; while in “Composite Book-Plates”’ is a design by Theodore Simson containing a large figure of a nude woman with her hair done in a pug, By H. Nekon seated in a grove amid dandelions and poppies, and diligently reading a book. The figure is treated in broad outline, which is ill adapted to the subject, and it lacks that refinement with- out which nothing is beautiful. She is absolutely at variance with her environment, and the whole is a tour de force quite unforgivable. Miss Labouchere, in her volume on ladies’ plates, shows a rather amusing pair of designs for Miss Nellie Heaton. These plates both bear the legend, ‘‘ Gather ye roses while ye may.” In the first, the designer, Mrs. Baker, has a fair creature in all the glory of entire nudity plucking blossoms from a rose-vine. In the other, she used the same design throughout, but has fully clothed the figure. Evidently Miss Heaton protested. These designs by a woman call to mind the fact that among the book-plates of over one hundred and fifty women designers with which I am familiar, I know of but.one other nude. This other is by Miss Mary Florence, and is of a large full-length angel entirely undraped. oe re =e —— 68 , < S 3 arn SS Ws os We . ‘ ‘oe
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