[Browne], five original pencil and wash drawings for Martin Chuzzlewit, [c. 1844]

[BROWNE, HABLOT K. ("PHIZ")]

Five original pencil and wash drawings for Martin Chuzzlewit, comprising:

1. 'Mr Jonas exhibits his presence of mind', 140 x 116mm.

2. 'Truth prevails and Virtue is triumphant', 134 x 108mm.

3. 'Mr Moddle is both particular and peculiar in his attentions', 115 x 92mm.

4. 'Balm for the wounded orphan', 125 x 101mm.

5. 'Mr Jefferson Brick proposes an appropriate sentiment', 142 x 112mm.

all pencil and wash drawings, unsigned, each mounted with a copy of the printed plate next to the original drawing, early twentieth century full levant morocco lettered in gilt, spine gilt in compartments, double gilt dentelle borders, brown moire silk doublures and lining, occasional browning, extremities of binding slightly rubbed

FIVE FINE EXAMPLES OF BROWNE'S ORIGINAL DRAWINGS FOR MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT. The plates are reproduced in the first edition on pages 485, 120, 384, 296 and 199 respectively.

Hablot K. Browne ("Phiz") illustrated a significant number of Dickens’ books, having succeeded Robert Seymour and then Robert William Buss for The Pickwick Papers. One letter from Dickens to Browne, conjecturally dated during June 1844, reveals Dickens giving detailed suggestions to his illustrator for Martin Chuzzlewit (see Letters, IV, Oxford, 1977, pp. 140-41).

Frederick Kitton notes in Dickens and his Illustrators that "Browne’s versatile pencil was again actively employed in embellishing the story begun by Dickens soon after his return from America in 1842, and to this he contributed forty etchings. Here the figures are drawn on a larger scale than usual, thus affording more scope for the delineation of character… In the majority of the Chuzzlewit etchings there is a vigour and precision of touch indicating the artist's riper experience…"

Kitton additionally notes that the complete set of drawings for the novel were sold in these rooms in 1889 (for £433 13s.)

PROVENANCE:

Sotheby's, 1889 (part lot); Ogden Goelet, his sale, American Art Association Anderson Galleries, 24/25 January 1935, lot 139; Alain de Suzannet, bookplate, his sale, Sotheby's, 22 November 1971, lot 185; Kenyon Starling, bookplate; William Self, bookplate, the sale of the family collection at Christie's New York, 2 April 2008, lot 94; David Brass Rare Books