Noel Paton

Two original circular pen and ink drawings (Frontispiece and plate facing p.145) for the first edition of Charles Kingsley’s The Water-Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby (London: Macmillan, 1863). Each signed with artist’s monogram at bottom center, the smaller (used as frontispiece) dated “1863”. Each measures, dia. 8-1/2 and dia. 6-1/16 inches.

Sir Joseph Noel Paton (1821–1901) was a Scottish artist, illustrator and sculptor. His designs were pre-Raphaelite in style, although his work was mostly with fairy tales, ballads and folklore, famously for portraying the Quarrel, and Reconciliation of Oberon and Titania (1847), both paintings are at the National Gallery of Scotland.