Lot 148: A drawing for Rockwell Kent's Moby Dick

KENT, ROCKWELL and HERMAN MELVILLE

Moby Dick or the Whale. Original drawing for the terminal illustration to Volume III, chapter CXVIII, The Quadrant, in the 1930 three-volume Lakeside Press edition of 1930. Ink and graphite on paper, 3 5/6 x 4 3/8 inches (8.5 x 11.25 cm) on a sheet of paper 3 3/4 x 4 5/8 inches (9.75 x 12.5 cm), mounted to card 9 3/8 x 6 3/4 inches (24.75 x 17.25 cm); signed in full in pencil (margin, l.r.), laid to card, both recto and verso of the mount with printer's notations including the reduction specifications etc. (which match the published work). The drawing itself clean, minor soiling to the mount, notations as noted, a trace of adhesive from a cover sheet of tissue at the head of the mount, no longer present. (This was conventional practice for original illustrations for reproduction at the time, as it kept the surface clean.) In all an excellent example of a drawing for this classic of American book illustration.