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Lot 295AR

SHEPARD (E.H.)
'The Wolery', [1950s-60s]

24 June 2015, 11:00 BST
London, Knightsbridge

Sold for £35,000 inc. premium

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SHEPARD (E.H.)

'The Wolery', gouache and pencil, heightened with white, 2 sheets of paper laid down on 2 artist's boards, signed lower right "E. H. Shepard", framed and glazed, framer's label of James Bourlet & Sons Limited, with typed text "Great Ormonde [sic] Street Hospital", some craquelure, some small strips of tape to edges, 910 x 1050mm., [1950s-60s]

Footnotes

EXCEPTIONALLY LARGE ORIGINAL ARTWORK BY THE BELOVED ILLUSTRATOR OF WINNIE-THE-POOH. An enlarged and modified version of the illustration of "Pooh at Wol's House", which appears on p.47 of the first edition of Winnie-The-Pooh:

"Owl lived at The Chestnuts, an old-world residence of great charm, which was grander than anybody else's, or seemed so to Bear, because it had both a knocker and a bell-pull. Underneath the knocker there was a notice which said:
PLES RING IF AN RNSER IS REQIRD.
Underneath the bell-pull there was a notice which said:
PLEZ CNOKE IF AN RNSR IS NOT REQID.
These notices had been written by Christopher Robin, who was the only one in the forest who could spell..."

Provenance: Thought to have originally been gifted to Great Ormond Street Hospital by E.H. Shepard; purchased from Chris Beetles Limited in 1982 by the present owner. In 1930, a year after J.M. Barrie famously gifted the rights of Peter Pan to the Hospital for Sick Children (now known as Great Ormond Street), the Peter Pan League was established as a means of fundraising for the then charity-dependent hospice. One of its first appeals for donations was written by A.A. Milne and illustrated by Shepard with a silhouette of Peter Pan. The motif proved so popular that it was adopted as an emblem for its membership badges. Shepard would also go on to design the hospital's Christmas card in the winter of 1939.

Additional information

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