FRENCH, Annie.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Original artwork: The Young Artist. A fine watercolour showing a young artist in blue cape and bonnet who is drawing flowers and butterflies in blue vases. The background hedge is a fine example of French's massed dot and line technique. Annie French (1872-1965) was influential in defining the aesthetics of the British Art and Crafts movement at the turn of the twentieth century.French followed Jessie M. King and the Charles Rennie Mackintosh group of designers at the Glasgow School of Art. There is some similarity between her work and the illustrators associated with The Yellow Book. French's notion of beauty was partly derived from maidens as painted by the Pre-Raphaelites. She "illustrated many children's books in watercolour and pen and ink, often using the 'massed dot' technique" (Horne, p. 200).On the reverse of the leaf are six lines of verse ("For lawyers and their pleading") with the date of 1600. The poem is frequently attributed to William Byrd and given the title "The Quiet Life" or "The Herdsman's Happy Life". Also included is the phrase "Pro rege, lege, et grege" ("For the king, the law, and the people") with the attribution of "Old Motto". Both are surrounded by floral borders in ink and watercolour.

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