22. James, Montague R. (William Russell Flint)

Book of Tobit and the History of Susanna.
Publisher: Haymarket Press, 1929. Limited edition.
Dust jacket torn. Color-plates after watercolors by William Russell Flint. Number 113 of a limited edition of 875 copies. Top edge gilt. Scottish-born artist Sir William Russell Flint enjoyed a successful career as a painter in watercolor and oil, book illustrator, medical illustrator, lithographer and etcher. He served for a long period as the President of the Royal Society of Painters in Watercolor as well as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers. He is remembered today primarily for his depictions of the female figure and his delicate, wet manner of working with watercolor. He was knighted in 1947. In 1950, in a lavishly produced book entitled "Drawings by Sir William Russell Flint" (London: Collins), Flint discusses in textual notes the circumstances surrounding many of the drawings he made from life and the illustration projects he was involved with during the course of his long and productive career. On p. 157, he recorded some thoughts on the Tobit and Susanna project: "Not many years ago a fine scholar and write of ghost stories [James R. Montague], now deceased, stated in an introduction to the Books of Tobit and Susanna, which I had been asked to illustrate, that the latter throughout the centuries "supplied artists of prurient minds with a subject." I was disturbed at a man of great attainment holding such a foolish view, and the publisher, my old friend Ernest Halton [at Haymarket Press], at my request drew his blue pencil through the passage. I strongly repudiate the notion that artists have prurient minds. I go further and submit that, by and large, artists, especially figure painters, are less-prurient-minded than other men. Having made this declaration, I may now take a lighter view of the subject. How old were the Elders? In my boyhood I was friendly with an Elder of the Kirk and my recollection is that he was merry and young looking. That Susanna's troublesome visitors were at least well up in years is made plain in the story, but not having read it carefully until I was about to illustrate it, I often wondered why the wicked ones who were so disturbed by the beauty of the wife of Joakim of Babylon should invariably be so represented as of immense age. Leave questions, however--what a dissector of texts can do with a simple tale like the History of Susanna is almost beyond belief. Regard the subject itself; it is a delightful one. The fair and righteous Susanna, her two maids, the false accusers, "old in wickedness" and richly attired, the garden with trees and the implied pool or fountain--or if your taste runs that way, grotto with sculptures--present ample ingredients for a pleasant exercise in composition. In not a single rendering of the subject that I have seen has there been the slightest hint of Babylon! To end this note more gaily than I began--there must have been something convincing in my illustration, because my small son (as he then was) remarked, "But I don't understand. Why is she looking so cross?" A must for every Flint collector.

100/200     SOLD: $83.00

Condition: A very good copy in scarce but worn jacket.