Arthur Rackham | Original illustration for Goblin Market ("Look, Lizzie..."), 1933

Arthur Rackham

original illustration for Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market, 1933

267 x 193mm. (frame 533 x 431 mm.), watercolour, pen, and ink, SIGNED BY THE ARTIST ON LOWER LEFT, framed and glazed

“Oh,” cried Lizzie, “Laura, Laura,

You should not peep at goblin men.”

Lizzie cover’d up her eyes,

Cover’d close lest they should look;

Laura rear’d her glossy head,

And whisper’d like the restless brook:

“Look, Lizzie, look, Lizzie,

Down the glen tramp little men.

Rossetti’s poem tells the story of two sisters tempted by evil goblins in a wood, and it is easy to see why this tale appealed to Rackham’s sense of the macabre and the grotesque. Rackham was very particular about selecting only the best passages to illustrate from a given literary work, and here, he hones in on a moment of dramatic tension, when the innocent Laura first catches sight of her temptors, who are about to lure her with their forbidden fruit in exchange for a lock of her hair. The piece dates from the final decade of Rackham’s career. By this point, he had a highly established reputation, and an extensive body of work to his name. By 1933, the year this piece was drawn, his commercial output had slowed down considerably, but this assured composition shows an experienced artist at the height of his artistic powers. This piece represents a return to familiar motifs, symbols, and artistic techniques, invested with renewed creative energy.

Rackham drew in an unorthodox manner, starting first with background details rather than human subjects. The gnarled tree branches in this piece, initially sketched in with pencil, then carefully worked in through sinewy pen and ink lines, are intended as more than just an instantly recognisable Rackham motif. It is clear that he wants the viewer to imagine these trees as antagonists in the scene–conjuring their presence as shadowy pagan forces, which exert a bewitching power over the composition as a whole.

PROVENANCE:

bought from The Leicester Galleries by H.O. Short Esq. in December 1935: purchase note to verso of frame; from the collection of the late Colin White

EXHIBITION:

The Leicester Galleries, December 1935, item no. 68: gallery label of "Ernest Brown & Phillips, Ltd. | The Leicester Galleries" and excerpt from exhibition catalogue; The Fine Art Society Ltd, June 1972, item no. 16746: gallery label; Sheffield City Art Galleries, December 1979-April 1980, item no. 65; "Beautiful Decadence: Aubrey Beardsley and his Contemporaries", 1997-8 exhibition touring Japan at the Isetan Museum of Art, Tokyo, Nara Sogo Museum of Art, Nara, and The Museum of Fine Arts, Gifu: Oxford Exhibition Services label dated October 1997; Dulwich Picture Gallery, December 2002-March 2003

LITERATURE:

Reproduced as one of 4 colour plates in Christina Rossetti, Goblin Market. London: George. G. Harrap & Co. Ltd, 1933; Arthur Rackham, 1867-1939: Illustrations, Drawings and Watercolours: An Exhibition Organised by Sheffield City Art Galleries, 1980; Beautiful Decadence: Aubrey Beardsley and his Contemporaries. Tokyo, 1997; reproduced in Rodney Engen, Arthur Rackham. London, 2002, p. 123 (publication accompanying Dulwich Picture Gallery exhibition)