[Homer, Winslow]:

$1,250 · Offered by William Reese Company

THE RATCATCHER'S DAUGHTER [wrapper title]. One of the earliest published works of Winslow Homer, produced when he was about twenty years old and a young apprentice at the Boston lithographic firm of J.H. Bufford. The illustration is an original design of Homer and shows the ratcatcher himself, clad as a rough and tumble Boston Irishman of the time, with a black eye and tattered clothing. He is surrounded by scenes of cats chasing rats down holes and into cages, donkeys pulling a carriage, a view of St. Paul's Cathedral, and a vignette of his unfortunate lovelorn daughter jumping to her death in a river. Homer inscribed his initials below one of the donkeys in surreptitious self-attribution. He produced several illustrations for sheet music at the time, as well as political illustrations and work for books, but "the sheet music covers provide a particularly fascinating documentation of Homer's progress as an artist during his apprenticeship" (Tatham). "The Ratcatcher's Daughter" was a British song of great popularity at the time, composed by the comic singer, Sam Cowell.A fine early illustration by one of the most noted of all 19th-century American artists.

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