Tenniel, John, illus.

Original pencil drawing (6 3/4 x 4 3/4 in.; 175 x 120 mm) on a blank leaf apparently taken from or previously inserted in a printed copy of Through the Looking-Glass (London: Macmillan, 1871) , tipped to heavier card stock (9 1/4 x 6 1/2 in.; 240 x 170 mm), being the fourth illustration in the book depicting Alice crouched on the fireplace mantel peering into the mirror, initials by Tenniel in the lower right corner;  faint offsetting of the the half-title (Through the Looking Glass) on verso, some toning and soiling.

Mr. and Mrs. Walter Vanderveen Struby (bought from Alice Parsons Millard, 27 February 1924, purchase note written on a calling card, see following lot) — by descent through the family

Rodney Engen, "Sir John Tenniel and Lewis Carroll," in An Exhibition from the Jon A. Lindseth Collection of C. L. Dodgson and Lewis Carroll (New York: Grolier Club, 1998), pp. 35-38

Original pencil drawing (6 3/4 x 4 3/4 in.; 175 x 120 mm) on a blank leaf apparently taken from a printed copy of Through the Looking-Glass (London: Macmillan, 1872) , tipped to heavier card stock (9 1/4 x 6 1/2 in.; 240 x 170 mm), being the illustration for the frontispiece of the book; faint offsetting of the the half-title (Through the Looking Glass) on verso, some toning and soiling
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Tenniel's original pencil drawing for Through the Looking-Glass. The drawing depicts Alice just a moment before she traverses the mirror into the Looking-glass House where things are the reverse of her world and "the books are something like our books, only the words go the wrong way ..." Austin Dobson wrote of Tenniel's best-known and much loved book illustrations:

Enchanting Alice! Black-and-white

Has made your deeds perennial;

And naught save "Chaos and old night"

Can part you now from Tenniel.

The collaboration of Lewis Carroll and John Tenniel began in 1863, after Carroll had completed his own illustrated version of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. By July he decided to publish the manuscript, but given his shortcomings as a draftsman—particularly in depicting animals and creatures— he cast about for a professional and  skilled illustrator. He admired Tenniel's Aesop and whimsical Punch animal fillers and succeeded in obtaining an introduction to the artist at his studio in January 1864. By 5 April Tenniel had agreed to illustrate Alice. 

From the very beginning, their collaboration was tempestuous. Rodney Engen attrributes the strained tenor of their working relationship to their similar personalities, being "fastidious, if not obsessed, by their work" (Engen, p. 35). Despite their antagonism,  the definitive Alice was published by Macmillan in 1866. It was so well-received by the reading public that within months of its publication Carroll decided upon a sequel with the tentative title of Looking-glass House. Carroll again turned to Tenniel to illustrate the book but Tenniel rejected the proposal. Carroll was forced to appeal to other artists but found no one amenable to the project let alone suitable. Tenniel finally relented and it would take three years before the illustrations were completed.

For all his illustrations, Tenniel would prepare preliminary sketches in pencil, then in pen and ink with Chinese white to imitate engraved lines. With tracing paper, he transferred the pencil outline of each drawing onto the woodblock and worked the shading on the block with a hard 6H pencil. The Dalziel brothers would engrave the blocks and return proofs of his drawings for correction.

Producing the drawings and  wood engravings was so drawn out and tedious that Tenniel became wholly disenchanted  with the process and forswore illustrating books again.  " 'I am completely weary of drawing on wood, perfectly sick of wood engraving,' he wrote to the Once a Week publisher" (quoted by Engen, p. 38). Years later, he reflected, "It is a curious fact that with Through the Looking-glass the faculty of making drawings for book illustrations parted from me, and notwithstanding all sorts of tempting inducements, I have done nothing in that direction since" (quoted by Engen, p. 38).   

The drawing was purchased by the present owner's family from Alice Parsons Millard, who established with her husband a rare book business in 1914 in Pasadena, catering to a group of affluent California collectors that included Henry E. Huntington, Estelle Doheny, William A. Clark, Jr., and John I. Perkins.