Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Pickwick Papers: Valentine & Pub Signs


Pickwick Papers: Valentine & Pub Signs

This is the second of a short series of images I created especially for fascinating daily blog Spitalfields Life, which had featured me (and my Oranges & Lemons print) in May last year.

I had mentioned to 'the Gentle Author' that half of one chapter of the Pickwick Papers was set in Brick Lane and so we conceived the idea of a collaboration of sorts - the GA would post an edited form of Chapter 32 and I would provide the illustrations (8 in toto).

Here is my idea of the 'walentine' that Sam Weller sees in a printshop window on his way from the George & Vulture to the Blue Boar tavern at Leadenhall Market, reminding him he needs to compose a billet doux to his sweetheart Mary. I have also included the signs of the two public houses between which he travels. The Blue Boar sign is described as 'a sign-board on which the painter's art had delineated something remotely resembling a cerulean elephant with an aquiline nose in lieu of a trunk'!

http://spitalfieldslife.com/2011/02/16/the-brick-lane-temperance-association/
http://spitalfieldslife.com/2010/05/19/paul-bommer-illustrator-printmaker/

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