Lot 5069: DE LA BERE, STEPHEN BAGHOT. 1877-1927. "Cyclops (or Polyphemus) calls on Vulcan the great Artificer to be Fitted with a new Eyeglass," watercolor and ink,

"Cyclops (or Polyphemus) calls on Vulcan the great Artificer to be Fitted with a new Eyeglass," watercolor and ink, 320 x 216 mm, signed and dated, 1909, illustration for the "Mixed Mythology" series in The Sketch.

S. Baghot de la Bere was a highly talented cartoonist and book illustrator whose dappled watercolors in the Arthur Rackham tradition profoundly influenced Edmund Dulac. He belonged to the London Sketch Club along with Dulac, W. Heath Robinson, Cecil Aldin, René Bull and John Hassall and exhibited his watercolors at Bruton Galleries, the International Art Gallery and the Fine Arts Society in London. The British Council included his work in the 1912 Venice Biennale. His cartoons and illustrations appeared in The Sketch, The Bystander, the Pall Mall Magazine, the London Mercury, the Illustrated London News and other periodicals. His books include Gulliver's Travels (1905), The Adventures of Don Quixote (1905), The Adventures of Punch (1905), The Rat (1905), Black's Literary Readers (1907) and The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes (1908). He served in the British Army during World War I and resumed his career in illustration on his discharge.