Kay Nielsen | Original illustration for Powder and Crinoline ("A Look, a Kiss and He was Gone"), 1912, signed and dated

Kay Nielsen

"A Look, a Kiss and He was Gone", original illustration for Rosanie and the Inconstant Prince

315 x 275mm. (frame 635 x 508 mm.), pencil, pen, ink, and watercolour, SIGNED AND DATED BY THE ARTIST ON TOP RIGHT ("KAY | NIELSEN | 1912"), framed and glazed, old 1½ inch closed tear at centre of illustration

This fine watercolour was reproduced to illustrate "Rosanie and the Inconstant Prince" in Arthur Quiller Couch's In Powder and Crinoline. Kay Nielsen worked in London between 1911 and 1916 and In Powder and Crinoline was the first major book he illustrated. The stylised postures of the figures owe much to the world of the theatre, and in particular the "spectacular presentations of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes... the world of fairy tale come true. The compliment that Nielsen paid it was to people his illustrations for In Powder and Crinoline with the dancers of the ballet" (White).

For another original illustration for the same work, see lot 299.

PROVENANCE:

from the collection of the late Colin White

EXHIBITION:

"Ernest Brown & Phillips: The Leicester Galleries" label, and excerpt from exhibition catalogue, [1913], "Item no.19" ("Nielsen's first exhibition at the Leicester Galleries opened in November 1913 to coincide with the publication of In Powder and Crinoline. Some fifty drawings and watercolours were on display" (White)); Bearne's Torquay, "'Other Worlds': an Exhibition of Illustrators' Works in the Realms of Fairies, Fantasy and the Future", 31 July to 11 August 1989, item no. 53: label

LITERATURE:

Reproduced as a colour print in Arthur Quiller Couch, Powder & Crinoline, London, [1913]; reproduced in Colin White, Kay Nielsen: A Biography, forthcoming, fig.59