Harry Furniss
PARLIAMENTARY SKETCHES THE PUBLISHED COLLECTION IN LIMITED EDITION
01 "The Grand Old Marionette ; or The Home Rule Dance", Punch
February 18th 1893, p.83, 18 x 24cms, and the Prime Minister of the Day
pulled hither and thither by the political turbulence in Ireland where
Republicans were seeking freedom from British rule. One of Furniss best
images and well drawn with a neatly integrated darkened plain of a background.
Furniss was celebrated as a caricaturist for extending Gladstone's collars
to absurd lengths.
02 Parliamentary Views; the Egyptian Question. 10 x 18cms. Punch February
23 1884, p.95. Marvellously sustained idea of interpreting the House of
Commons in a qausi-Egyptian way, with the Mr.Gladstone, the Prime Minister's
collars assuming their Furniss hallmark shape, and receiving additional
Egyptian decoration. The Speaker's Eye as Horus.
03 Hardly more archaelogically correct, "The House of Commons, from
a design by a Japanese artist." Punch November 8th 1884 p.227. Japanese
design influenced British taste from c1857. By 1884 it was distinctly
vieux chose. Nice touches abound. The omni-present Furniss beetle; Gladstone
on his box marked GOM, the Grand Old Man.
04 a dramatic panoramic and multi-layered image of The Jerrybuilding Jabberwock
, one of Harry Furniss best for strength of drawing (often he was careless
or resorting too easily to pastiche). A real feeling of the drab smoky despoilation
of the land by the City. Punch October 8th 1892, 17 x 19cms.
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