Shepard, E.H.

130 by 186mm., fine ink and watercolour drawing, signed with initials lower left, artist's name and address on reverse, some browning from former mount

The weekly periodical entitled Home Chat published an exclusive series of six colour prints in 1928, advertised (on the upper wrapper of one issue) as 'Six incidents in the lives of Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh Specially drawn in colour by Ernest H. Shepard'. The first print was issued in the issue dated 6 October 1928.

In the early 1970s Shepard was approached by Methuen to provide colour for his original black and white drawings. However, the Home Chat prints pre-date these coloured Winnie-the-Pooh drawings by over forty years. They offer a rare opportunity to see the artist working in colour at a time contemporary with the first publication of the original books.

The scene represented in this present drawing is one recalled by Piglet at the conclusion of chapter four of The House at Pooh Corner ('In which it is shown that Tiggers don't climb trees'). Tigger and Roo are stuck in a Pine tree and Christopher Robin proposes to remove his tunic so that Roo and Tigger can jump into it. Piglet fails to listen to the entire plan for he was "so agog at the thought of seeing Christopher Robin's blue braces again. He had only seen them once before, when he was much younger, and, being a little over-excited by them, had had to go to bed half an hour earlier than usual; and he had always wondered since if they were really as blue and as bracing as he had thought them..."

Shepard has used a light green for Christopher Robin's braces which is, presumably, a joke.