Water Baby Rides a Fish, for Charles Kingsley's "The Water-Babies"

Author Related author Charles Kingsley British

1916

Not on view

In 1916 the leading American illustrator Jessie Wilcox Smith was employed by Dodd, Mead & Co. to illustrate "The Water-Babies," a popular novel by Charles Kingsley first published in London in 1863. This drawing of a child riding a large fish became a black and white line image on the half-title page of the related volume, the first that the reader encounters in the book. The story tells how a chimney sweep, Tom falls into a river and is transformed into a water-baby who then undergoes a moral journey (a tale that combines Christian allegory, a critique of Victorian labor practices and defends Darwin's recently published theory of evolution).

Artwork Details

Overview

Provenance

Title: Water Baby Rides a Fish, for Charles Kingsley's "The Water-Babies"
Artist: Jessie Wilcox Smith (American, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 1863–1935 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
Author: Related author Charles Kingsley (British, Holne, Devon 1819–1875 Eversley, Hampshire)
Date: 1916
Medium: Pen and ink and watercolor
Dimensions: Sheet: 25 7/8 × 20 3/16 in. (65.8 × 51.2 cm)
Classification: Drawings
Credit Line: Gift of Jacqueline Loewe Fowler, 2020
Object Number: 2021.16.20
Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints

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