The Duchess and the Frog,

a quite superb pen-and-ink sketch of the Duchess supporting the postage stamp on her head and smiling at a small frog in the opposite corner who is delivering a letter, on an envelope from Cheltenham to Nottingham 10 April 1881, franked with the 1d. Venetian red PE, S.G.K3, tied by the Cheltenham code 'I J' squared-circle date stamp, Nottingham code 'D' arrival date stamp on the reverse the following day; fine. EXCEPTIONAL QUALITY.

Addressed to Mademoiselle Burnblum at Western House School in Nottingham where she was a French teacher, this and the following two lots, from the same correspondence, are generally accepted as being among the finest hand-illustrated envelopes of the Victorian reign