SHEPARD, "...AN ENCHANTED PLACE ON THE VERY TOP OF THE FOREST", ORIGINAL INK DRAWING, 1928 (FRAMED AND GLAZED)

240 by 365mm. (sheet 252 by 368mm.), signed "Ernest H. Shepard" lower right, artist’s name and address on reverse ("Long Meadow | Longdown | Guildford"), some minor corrections in gouache, some browning below mount

Sold in these rooms, 24 February 1969, lot 192

ONE OF THE LARGEST ILLUSTRATIONS FROM THE HOUSE AT POOH CORNER. THIS ILLUSTRATION HAS BEEN IN A PRIVATE COLLECTION FOR ALMOST FIVE DECADES. The final chapter of The House at Pooh Corner is a wonderfully measured and poignant conclusion to Milne’s Pooh books. We learn that "Christopher Robin was going away" and, after the animals have made a presentation to him, he trudges off to the enchanted place choosing Pooh as his only companion. With all the skills of a dramatist Milne provides an increasingly stilted and staccato conversation. Christopher Robin asks Pooh to "promise you won’t forget about me, ever…" and then, as words begin to fail, he questions "if I – if I’m not quite – …Pooh, whatever happens, you will understand, won’t you?" Milne finally signs off with one of the most heart-rending farewells in children’s literature: "…wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place in the top of the Forest a little boy and his bear will always be playing."

This illustration, printed as a double-page illustration on pages 172-173 is, excluding a silhouette, the penultimate time we see Christopher Robin and Pooh together as they make their way to the place of parting.

As printed, the illustration suffers from being split across two pages. There is a pencil note below the mount including the instruction "cut into two vertically…" The original drawing, which is entirely uncut, demonstrates Shepard’s skill for characters in a landscape.