Gouache and pencil on Whatman drawing board, circa 1955. 533x673 mm; 21x26 1/2 inches. Signed in gouache, lower right recto. Ex-collection Hammer Galleries, New York, with the label verso; private collection, Pennsylvania.
A likely study for the illustrative children's story Parsley (Harper's, 1955): "The hunter leaned against the tree to steady himself, but suddenly, just as he was about to squeeze the trigger, the tree whispered his warning. From betwixt two clouds that were as puffed cheeks there came a burst of wind, and the tree twisted and knocked against the hunter, and one of the roots tripped him, and he fell and fell, followed by stones, until he lay, far below, to hunt no more. The gun was lost in a ravine, but swinging back and forth quietly on one of the crooked arms of the pine hung the sharp binoculars, which the tree had lifted off the hunter's shoulders as he fell."
