Lot 162: [POTTER, (HELEN) BEATRIX. 1866-1943.] STURGES (DODGE KNIGHT), KATHARINE.

[POTTER, (HELEN) BEATRIX. 1866-1943.] STURGES (DODGE KNIGHT), KATHARINE. 1890-1979. Pen-and-ink drawing, I Pray You, Speak Again To My Brothers, illustration for Beatrix Potter, Sister Anne (Philadelphia: David McKay, 1932), p 25, 407 x 267 mm, signed with the artist’s initials, framed and glazed. Beatrix Potter’s retelling of Charles Perrault’s Bluebeard that she reset in Lancashire as Sister Anne was originally part of The Fairy Caravan (1929), published for the American public only by David McKay. But when the book was thought too long, the story was removed and published separately. It was Potter’s last book to be published in her lifetime and the only one she did not illustrate herself. Potter thought she was too old to do the pictures (and she was never good with human figures anyway) so they were provided by prominent book and magazine illustrator and advertising artist Katharine Sturges. Potter so liked the stylish results that she informed her publisher, Do thank Katharine Sturges from me for interpreting just what I meant! Sturges was profoundly influenced by Japanese color woodblocks, Chinese painting, Viennese Secessionism and Art Deco. But she is perhaps best remembered today as the mother of Hilary Knight, who illustrated Eloise (1955). See Linder, pp 324-326.