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Presentation: Framed
SN: 451
Signed on the reverse, and titled (on a War Service Economy Label)
Oil on canvas (Artist's Colorman)
25 x 30 in. (61 x 76.2 cm.)
Provenance: the collection of John Monnington
Exhibited: London, The Fine Art Society, Winifred Knights, 1995, no. 2a
Literature: Paul Liss, Winifred Knights, The Fine Art Society, 1995, no. 2a, pp. 31 and 48
This oil study is for the earliest of Knights' decorative paintings: Design for Wall Decoration, the Slade Sketch Club Special Figure Subject for January 1918. The mural itself is unlikely to have been executed - other studies indicate that its intended size was to be 5 X 6 ft (the size of paintings entered for the Scholarship to Rome). The picture is inspired by the Italian Primitives, as the clarity of form, and the thoughtful arrangement of the figures in space indicate. The studies for the composition were probably executed while staying at Lineholt Farm in Worcestershire, between October 1917 and October 1918.
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Presentation: Framed
SN: 927
Signed on the reserved with initials and dated 1930
26 3/16 x 26 3/16 in. (66.5 x 66.5 cm.)
Provenance: French Gallery; Stephen Courtauld
Piediluco, (literally foot of a sacred grove) is a small Umbrian town between Terni and Rieti. The Lake of Piediluco, seventeen kilometres in circumference, is surrounded by wooded hills; tall birches and firs, with occasional vineyards. From July to September 1924, for their honeymoon, Monnington and Knights rented the top floor of a villa overlooking the lake; the landscape around Piediluco proved a huge inspiration for both of them: Our Loggia overhanging the lake is fine to work in. Its over 40 ft long and 15 ft wide and we line in it as well as work. We cross by bridge to our bedroom which is in the main house and as large as a palace bedroom with a vaulted and painted ceiling covered all over with pictures of the lake and flying cherubs... I do my big picture all day in the loggia and go out sketching in the evening when it is cooler or rather less sunny. Tom is out all day because he is doing backgrounds for his big picture. (Letter from Knights to her aunt, LIV 11.August 1924). The "big picture" to which Knights refers was Monningtons iconic Allegory, (Tate collection); Knights used the same landscape as the setting for her epic Santissima Trinita, (private collection, Canada). A panel of Lake Piediluco was presented by Monnington as his Diploma Work on his election to the Royal Academy.
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Presentation: Framed
SN: 82
Brown ink on tracing paper, squared, laid on paper, 5¾ x 10¾ ins. (14.5 x 25.7 cms., mount opening)
Exhibited: The Fine Art Society, 1995 (9e)
Although Winifred Knights' Rome Scholarship came to an end in 1923, she continued to live and work at the British School at Rome during 1924-5, where she married her fellow student Thomas Monnington in April 1924. These studies, undertaken whilst on her honeymoon at Lake Piedeluca, were later used as the background of Knights' epic Santissima Trinita, 1924-30.
Knights made extensive landscape studies during her stay in Italy (see Italian Landscape, 1920, Tate Gallery NO3683), most frequently of the countryside around Lazio, Umbria and the Abruzzi. She often worked in triplicate, creating a drawing, then an outline on tracing paper and lastly a colour study. This colour study is sold with a brown ink outline drawing of the same subject.
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Presentation: Framed
SN: 84
Inscribed on the reverse: W. M. Knights, 22 Madeira Road, Streatham.
Pencil, squared, 24D X 18 ins. (62.5 X 45.7 cms.)
Provenance: the artist's estate
Exhibited: London, The Fine Art Society, Winifred Knights, 1995, no. 2a
Literature: Paul Liss, Winifred Knights, The Fine Art Society, 1995, no. 2a, pp. 31 and 48
This study is for the earliest of Knights' decorative paintings: Design for Wall Decoration, the Slade Sketch Club Special Figure Subject for January 1918. Knights painted an oil of the Design for Wall Decoration (see below), but the mural itself is unlikely to have been executed - other studies indicate that its intended size was to be 5 X 6 ft (the size of paintings entered for the Scholarship to Rome). The picture is inspired by the Italian Primitives, as the clarity of form, and the thoughtful arrangement of the figures in space indicate. The studies for the composition were probably executed while staying at Lineholt Farm in Worcestershire, between October 1917 and October 1918.
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Presentation: Framed
SN: 85
Thinned oil on tracing paper, 7F X 18D ins. (20 X 47.4 cms.) Provenance: the artist's studio; Andrew McIntosh Patrick Exhibited: Rome, The British School at Rome, Winifred Knights 1995 (11b) Literature: Paul Liss, Winifred Knights, 1995, p. 55; p. 40, reproduced
This landscape is one of a series of studies made during 1924 whilst Knights and Monnington were on their honeymoon in Piediluco. Monnington used the same setting for his iconic Tate painting Allegory and Knights for her major painting Santissima Trinita. In an undated manuscript in the archives of the British School at Rome, Monnington recounts: 'On her return to England [1926] she completed, after months of work, a picture for which she had made many studies in Italy. She gave it the title of The Santissima Trinita'.
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Presentation: Framed
SN: 545
Oil on tracing paper, pencil and wash, 5½ × 11¼ in. (14 × 28.6 cm.)
Provenance: the artist’s estate; private collection since 1995
Literature: G.K.A. Bell, ‘The Church and the Artist’, The Studio, September 1942, vol. 124,
no. 594, p. 81
In a gilded flat section frame, with square outer moulding, glazed
Knights was commissioned to paint the Milner Memorial altarpiece for Canterbury Cathedral in 1928; she finished it some five years later in 1933. It was to be the last major work completed by Knights.
Bishop Bell, who was involved with commissions for religious works from numerous artists (including Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant, Augustus Lunn and Hans Feibusch), described the St Martin Altarpiece as ‘one of the most lovely, delicate and deeply felt modern religious paintings that I know’ (G.K.A. Bell,‘The Church and the Artist’, The Studio, September 1942, vol. 124, no. 594, p. 81).
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Presentation: Mounted
SN: 3943
Inscribed with various notes
Pencil
21.5 x 15 cm
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Presentation: Framed
SN: 1648
Pencil
4 x 6 1/4 ins. (10 x 16 cm.)
In a reeded mahogony frame
The Borghese Gardens, situated by The British School at Rome, provided Knights with a setting for many of her Rome School compositions, for instance The Marriage at Cana. The gardens also provided an area where Knight's could avoid the noise of the city. In her first letter home from Rome she wrote:
I can’t tell you how lovely Rome is Mother. The gardens are so beautiful and all the plants and trees are different. The school is a beautiful building also. And it is so comforting to come back to English people after all the shrieking foreigners they are a noisy lot. (5th November 1920)
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Presentation: Framed
SN: 2632
Oil over pencil on canvas
6 1/8 x 8 1/4 in. (15.6 x 21 cm.)
Provenance: The Artist's Estate; Anthony Mould
Exhibited: Winifred Knights, The Fine Art Society, 1995, no. 9n.
Literature: Paul Liss, Winifred Knights, 1995, p. 52
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Presentation: Framed
SN: 2633
Signed and dated June 1918
Watercolour and pen and ink
10 5/8 x 10 1/4 in. (27 x 26 cm.)
The model is Winifred Knights sister Joyce.
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Presentation: Framed
SN: 2827
Pencil
4 3/4 x 5 1/2 in. (12 x 14 cm.)
Provenance: The Artist's Estate
This is likely to be a study for the Deluge. The model appears to be Arnold Mason, who Knights was at the time engaged to.
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Presentation: Passe-partout
SN: 3109
Pencil on tracing paper, 9 1/2 x 5 in. (24.2 x 12.8 cm.)
(13 x 8 5/8 in. (33 x 22 cm.) framed)
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Presentation: Passe-partout
SN: 3111
Ink on paper, 8 x 6 1/8 in. (20 x 15.5 cm.)
(9 7/8 x 8 1/16 in. (25 x 20.5 cm.) framed)
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Presentation: Passe-partout
SN: 3118
Pencil on tracing paper, 8 5/8 x 5 1/4 in. (22 x 13.2cm.)
(10 5/8 x 7 1/8 in. (27 x 18.2cm.) framed)
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Presentation: Passe-partout
SN: 3119
Pencil on paper, 8 1/4 x 6 in. (21 x 15cm.)
(10 1/4 x 8 in. (26 x 20cm.) framed)
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Presentation: Passe-partout
SN: 3120
Pencil on tracing paper, 7 5/8 x 2 3/4 in. (19.5 x 7cm.)
(11 x 6 in. (28 x 15cm.) framed)
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Presentation: Passe-partout
SN: 3121
Pencil on paper, 6 x 4 3/4 in. (15 x 12cm.)
(8 x 6 3/4 in. (20 x 17cm.) framed)
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Presentation: Passe-partout
SN: 3122
Pencil on paper, 6 x 4 3/4 in. (15 x 12cm.)
(8 x 6 3/4 in. (20 x 17cm.) framed)
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Presentation: Passe-partout
SN: 3123
Pencil on paper, 7 3/16 x 5 3/4 in. (18.2 x 14.5cm.)
(8 3/4 x 7 1/4 in. (22.2 x 18.5cm.) framed)
This is likely to be a study for one of the figures in the Deluge, Knights winner entry for the 1920 Rome Scholarship. Her sketch books of the period contain numerous studies based on quattrocento works of art, particularly by Donatello and Verrocchio
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Presentation: Passe-partout
SN: 3127
Pen and pencil and ink on paper, 6 3/4 x 3 3/4 in. (17 x 9.5cm.)
(8 1/2 x 5 5/8 in. (21.8 x 14.4cm.) framed)
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Presentation: Passe-partout
SN: 3128
Coloured pencil on paper, 5 x 5 1/2 in. (12.5 x 14cm.)
(6 7/8 x 7 1/2 in. (17.5 x 19cm.) framed)
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Presentation: Passe-partout
SN: 3143
Pencil on tracing paper.
Two pictures (10 5/8 x 10 1/2 in. (27 x 26.5cm.) framed) :
- left 7 x 3 1/4 in. (17.7 x 8.1cm.)
- right 7 x 3 1/4 in. (17.7 x 8.1cm.)
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Presentation: Passe-partout
SN: 3144
Pencil on paper and tracing paper.
Two pictures (11 1/2 x 8 1/4 in. (29 x 21cm.) framed) :
- left 8 x 4 1/8 in. (20 x 10.5cm.)
- right 8 x 4 1/8 in. (20 x 10.5cm.)
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Presentation: Passe-partout
SN: 3145
Pencil on tracing paper, 11 x 7 in. (28 x 18cm.)
(14 1/2 x 10 5/8 in. (37 x 27cm.) framed)
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Presentation: Passe-partout
SN: 3163
Pencil and coloured pencil on paper. Four pictures :
- top left 4 1/2 x 4 in. (11.5 x 10cm.)
- bottom left 2 1/8 x 3 1/2 in. (5.3 x 9cm.)
- top right 2 3/4 x 2 3/8 in. (7 x 6cm.)
- bottom right 4 3/4 x 3 3/8 in. (12 x 8.5cm.)
All framed : 10 5/8 x 10 5/8 in. (27 x 27cm.)
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Presentation: Passe-partout
SN: 3640
Pencil on paper, 16 x 23.5cm (21 x 28.5cm framed)
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Presentation: Framed
SN: 4375
Pencil,
15.8 x 15.8 cm
Lineholt Farm, near Stourport, Worcestershire, was the home of the artist’s great aunts Frances Williams and Marianne Pardoe. On her return from Rome Knights embarked on an ambitious painting Demeter in Worcestershire set around the Lineholt Farmhouse which became the subject of series detailed studies of the finest detail.
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Presentation: Framed
SN: 4940
Oil over pencil on tracing paper
26 x 21.3 cm, 101/4 x 3/ in.
Exhibited: Winifred Knights, The Fine Art Society, 1995; no. 12 dIn a silver stepped Rowley frame
Lineholt Farm, near Stourport, Worcestershire, was the home of the artist’s great aunts Frances Williams and Marianne Pardoe. On her return from Rome Knights embarked on an ambitious painting Demeter in Worcestershire set around the Lineholt Farmhouse which became the subject of series detailed studies of the finest detail.
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Presentation: Framed
SN: 81
Pencil, 9 x 6 5/8 ins. (23 x 17 cms.)
Provenance: the artist's own collection
This drawing dates to 1919 and includes an early compositional design for Knights' Village Street, Mill Hands Conversing, with which she won the first prize for the Slade Summer Competition of that year. This self-portrait has a gentleness which contrasts with the increasingly direct and introspective, almost harsh, nature of her later self-portraits
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Presentation: Framed
SN: 83
Oil and brown ink on tracing paper, laid on paper, extensively inscribed with colour notes in pencil, 6½ x 10 ins. (16.5 x 25.4 cms., mount opening)
Provenance: acquired from the artist's son, John Monnington
Literature: Paul Liss, Winifred Knights 1899-1947, the Fine Art Society plc and Paul Liss in association with the British School at Rome, 1994
Exhibited: The Fine Art Society, 1995 (9f)
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Presentation: Framed
SN: 546
Pencil, 9 × 4½ in. (23 × 11.5 cm.)
Provenance: the artist’s estate
Literature: Winifred Knights, exh. cat.,The Fine Art Society, London, 1995, pp. 56–7 (similar work repr. p. 43)
Knights began work in 1928, eventually finishing the altarpiece five years later in 1933. It was to be the last major work completed by Knights. Bishop Bell, who was involved with commissions for religious works from numerous artists including Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant, Augustus Lunn and Hans Feibusch, described the St Martin Altarpiece as ‘one of the most lovely, delicate and deeply felt modern religious paintings that I know’ (G.K.A. Bell,‘The Church and the Artist’, The Studio, September 1942, vol. 124, no. 594, p. 81).
Glyn Jones was, perhaps predictably, less enthusiastic:‘Of the painting by the late Miss Knights, I say this: the few other paintings of hers which I have seen I have much admired, but I can make nothing of this one, beyond the usual technical skill.’ (Glyn Jones, 8 April 1950, letter to Mr Rushbury).
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Presentation: Framed
SN: 946
black chalk
8 x 5 in. (20 x 12.5cm)
Provenance: The Artist's own collection
Framed in a laurel knull gilded oak frame.
Winifred Knights was one of the Slade's most striking beauties. Fellow Slade-trained artists Mason, Gill and Monnington all fell under her spell.
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Presentation: Framed
SN: 1036
Signed and dated 1930
Oil on canvas, 40 1/2 x 44 1/2 in. (103 x 113 cm.)
Provenance: John Addinsell, London, 1930-1988; Christie's, London, 3rd March 1988, lot 60; Fine Art Society, London, 1988
Exhibited: Exhibition of paintings, drawings engraving and small sculpture by artists resident in Great Britain and the Dominions, Imperial Gallery, London, April - June 1927,(145). Exhibited unfinished.
Private Collection, Italy
In an account of the artist's life sent to the British School at Rome, Thomas Monnington wrote:
On her return to England she completed, after months of work, a picture for which she had made many studies in Italy. She gave it the title of 'The Santissima Trinita', and it depicted peasants resting among the mountains on a pilgrimage to the Festival of the Santissima Trinita at Vallepietra in the Abruzzi. She made the pilgrimage herself on two occasions, and was greatly moved by this Christian survival of a pagan ceremony.
This picture was exhibited at the imperial Gallery of Art in London, in its great refinement of design and execution receiving most favourable comment from the critics. She refused an offer [of] £1,000 for the picture because she considered she had promised it to a previous patron for a very much smaller sum, long before it was exhibited. This action was typical of her unvarying loyalty and honesty.
The painting draws on various works from the artist's time as a Rome Scholar, especially the compositional ideas for `Paradise'. The setting for the painting, is based on studies made near Piediluco, executed during 19z4 whilst Monnington was working on his painting `Allegory'. The figures asleep in the fields relate to an incident Knights witnessed near to Leonessa in 1924: `we learnt there had been an earthquake shock the night before and [the peasants] were all fearing some more so everyone had gone into the fields to sleep.' (Letter to mother, August 1924). Four studies for this painting, three of which are inscribed Santa Trinita, and the fourth of which is dated 1924, are in the collection of the British Museum.
Tomorrow morning I am going right up into the mountains with a mule and a very beautiful cover & some Anticoli peasants to see a miracle which happens every year, at Valle Pietra, in the Abruzzi. High upon a precipice there is a little chapel and all the peasants of the Abruzzi as far down as Naples make a pilgrimage to wash their sins away ... we have to travel all night and arrive at the top of the mountain at daybreak & the peasants build big fires all the way & sing the whole time, it ought to be very beautiful.
Letter to Millicent Murby, 23rd May 1923
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Presentation: Framed
SN: 1118
Signed, inscribed with title and dated, May 1918 Pencil and watercolour on prepared paper, 29.5 x19.5cm, 7-1/8 x 11-1/4 in.
A study of Hansel and Gretel is on the reverse of this drawing. From her early to her late teens, Knights produced a vast number of illustrative drawings, especially inspired by fairy tales such as the Brothers Grimm.
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Presentation: Framed
SN: 1132
'My picture will be very beautiful. I have drawn 11 plates of melon, pink melon; 9 glasses of wine some empty, because they have run out, & 38 people'. Letter to Mother, 24th August 1922.
The 'Marriage at Cana', started in 1922, is the principal painting produced by Knights during her time at the British School at Rome.
It depicts the miracle of the water turned into wine, (related in John 2:1-12). The setting for the painting is the Borghese Gardens adjoining the British School at Rome. The setting is also reminiscent of the background devised by Piero delta Francesca for the fresco of 'The Adoration of the True Cross' in the Church of S.Francesco in Arezzo, visited by Knights prior to starting work on her own composition.
The artist includes herself amongst the guests, along side, in the earliest studies, Arnold Mason. Tom Monnington, who did not arrive at the British School at Rome until 1923, is included in later studies at the far end of the table, in effect next to Mason. As known rivals over Knights they clearly made an ill-suited pair for a marriage feast and Mason is subsequently omitted from the final composition.
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Presentation: Framed
SN: 1211
signed with monogram
Pen and ink 6 3/4 x 4 in. (17 x 10 cm).
Provenance: Patrick Walker
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Presentation: Passe-partout
SN: 3394
Pencil, 9 1/4 x 8 1/16 in. (23,5 x 20,5 cm.) (12 x 10 3/4 in. (30,5 x 27,5 cm.) framed) Provenance: the artist's own collection. From her teenage years on, into her mid 1920's Winifred Knights produced a handful of self portraits, usually in pencil without colour. The un self-conscious early portraits are later replaced by increasingly intense and introspective compositions, characterised by a nervous, introspection, as depicted here.
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Presentation: Passe-partout
SN: 3110
Pencil and watercolour on paper, 7 1/4 x 10 in. (18.4 x 25.3 cm.)
(9 1/4 x 12 in. (23.4 x 30.3 cm.) framed)
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Presentation: Passe-partout
SN: 3131
Pencil on paper, 5 1/8 x 8 1/2 in. (13 x 21.5cm.)
(6 3/4 x 10 in. (17 x 25.5cm.) framed)
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Presentation: Mounted
SN: 4293
Pencil,
20.5 x 13 cm
Provenance: the artist’s estate
Literature: Winifred Knights, exh. cat.,The Fine Art Society, London, 1995, pp. 56–7 (similar work repr. p. 43)
Knights began work in 1928, eventually finishing the altarpiece five years later in 1933. It was to be the last major work completed by Knights. Bishop Bell, who was involved with commissions for religious works from numerous artists including Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant, Augustus Lunn and Hans Feibusch, described the St Martin Altarpiece as ‘one of the most lovely, delicate and deeply felt modern religious paintings that I know’ (G.K.A. Bell,‘The Church and the Artist’, The Studio, September 1942, vol. 124, no. 594, p. 81).
Glyn Jones was, perhaps predictably, less enthusiastic:‘Of the painting by the late Miss Knights, I say this: the few other paintings of hers which I have seen I have much admired, but I can make nothing of this one, beyond the usual technical skill.’ (Glyn Jones, 8 April 1950, letter to Mr Rushbury).
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Presentation: Framed
SN: 214
Pencil on tracing paper
60 x 72 in. (152.4 x 183 cm.)
'The Deluge' was the prescribed subject for the 1920 British School at Rome Scholarship in Decorative Painting. The Scholarship rules required that the painting was produced in oil or tempera, together with a cartoon, both of which were to be executed in eight weeks. Winifred Knights commenced work on July 5th 1920 and despite losing time through illness was judged the winner, news of which she received on 21st September 1920.
Knights presented Eleven Shaw, (Secretary of the British School at Rome), with a sketch book inscribed My Book of Studies, for the Rome Scholarship, 1920 (collection Catherine Meeson), which contains numerous studies for the painting. The artist's mother modelled for the central figure carrying the baby and Arnold Mason for the male figure beside her and the man shinning up the hill. The artist portrayed herself as the figure to the centre right of the foreground. According to Eileen Palmer the Flood water was modelled on Clapham Common.
A squared watercolour for `The Deluge' is in the College Art Collections, University College London (Palmer Gift no. 73), together with two early compositional studies on tracing paper (Palmer Gift no. 76/77). The Cartoon for the picture was sold at Christie's, 14 October 1987, (lot 1 z9) and is now in the collection of the Mitchell Wolfson Jr. Museum of Decorative and Propaganda Art, Miami, Florida.
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