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Stealing the Lunch
n.p.: , 1921. Item #05235
"Stealing the Lunch"
Goblin Picnic Scene — A 1921 Watercolor Pastiche After Arthur Rackham by G. Guggenheim
[AFTER ARTHUR RACKHAM] — G. GUGGENHEIM (1921). "Stealing the lunch - Goblins at Table, with a Stork Absconding with a Ham. Watercolor and ink on paper, signed lower left “G. Guggenheim 1921” and inscribed lower right “Arthur Rackham 09.” Image size: 10 ½ x 14 inches (267 x 368 mm).
Matted, framed, and glazed. Frame size: 20 ¼ x 24 ¼ inches (515 x 616 mm).
A lively, humorous fantasy watercolor depicting goblin-like figures gathered in a woodland hollow around a picnic table, one playing an accordion, another tumbling headlong from a burrow. To the left, a large stork or pelican makes off with a ham in its beak, while mushrooms sprout in the foreground and a wary rodent observes from the right.
The composition is clearly indebted to the celebrated style of Arthur Rackham (1867–1939), whose grotesques and fairy subjects for Grimm’s Fairy Tales (1900; rev. 1909), Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens (1906), and Undine (1909) inspired a generation of copyists and admirers. Although inscribed with Rackham’s name and the date “09,” this work is not a published Rackham illustration; rather, it is a spirited pastiche by G. Guggenheim, executed in 1921, consciously echoing Rackham’s fairy-tale grotesques.
Such pastiches were common in the early 20th century, when Rackham’s style was at its most influential. This piece demonstrates a playful imagination and a deft, if more caricatural, hand. While not an autograph Rackham, it remains a decorative and curious homage, illustrative of the illustrator’s wide cultural reach.
Price: $1,000.00