?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000
(RELIGIOUS DEVOTION.) Large hand-drawn graphic typography devotional composition. Ink, graphite, gouache, gilt paper and clipped engravings on a single sheet of heavy wove stock; possibly related ink signature "D. Edwardes, 1858" to the verso; an account of provenance through 1868 in another hand also on verso. 48 1/4x35 1/4 inches; minor edge wear and staining but overall, very well preserved. Britain, mid-nineteenth century
an astonishing combination of religious devotion and folk art. Over 150 engraved scenes of the Old and New Testament clipped from book pages and pasted within the most incredible symmetrically designed tapestry of hand-drawn scripture and ornament. Some shorter phrases stand alone in a single line while others are bifurcated across the composition, continuing at the other side of the central architectural outline or engraved vignette. As busy as it is there is little confusion when reading the sequence of horizontal verse with each line meticulously alternating between numerous lettering styles and color schemes. Areas that appear from a distance to be decorative motifs of open books and simple shaded areas of ornamentation are on closer inspection indeed themselves minutely concentrated Biblical quotations. One discovers an untold number of seemingly hidden verses, Psalms or exclamations in every crook and corner of this rabbit hole of intricacy.
Impossible to guess the countless hours our artist poured into fashioning such an intense affair, but none can doubt it was most righteously made.
