Original pen and ink drawing of a fairy girl with moth wings, from the 1911 play for young people THE FAIRY CHANGELING – executed in the first part of Fanny Cory's long career.
Very good plus.
Price: $500.00
"I curled in the lily's cup / The livelong summer day, / Till she folded her petals up, / And I slipped like the dew away."
Fanny Cory's output can be easily divided into two halves, owing to her hiatus from art to raise her children. After the birth of her third child in 1910, Cory "practically abandoned the place she had earned in the art world" (Cooney and Dodgson, 12); THE FAIRY CHANGELING was one of only a handful of titles she worked on between 1910 and 1913, after which she illustrated no books until the 1920s. Cory found an artistic second life in 1926 with the comic strip SONNYSAYINGS, with which she became one of the first syndicated woman cartoonists in the US; the strip ran until 1956.
In the first half of her career, Cory was celebrated for her "charmingly delicate" (INDIANAPOLIS JOURNAL, 6) illustrations of children and fairies, of which THE FAIRY CHANGELING is a beautiful example. It is part of a genre of fairy plays that were popular at the time for child performers, featuring a parade of winged characters who each sang or spoke a simple verse; Cory's illustrations for THE FAIRY CHANGELING provided inspiration for potential costume designs an demeanor. In this pen-and-ink drawing for the Night-Moth fairy, her artistic process is visible in the partially erased pencil sketch still partially visible below the finished drawing. A compelling piece.
Read more: Bob Cooney and Sayre Cooney Dodgson, "Montana Mother and Artist Fanny Cory," Montana: The Magazine of Western History 30, no. 3; "Three Books by Baum," The Indianapolis Journal 14 December 1903.
[Montana]: n. p, [not after 1911]. 6.75'' x 4''. One pen-and-ink drawing on thick card, initialed "F. Y. C." Captioned below in pencil, "The Night-Moth." Card with a touch of rubbing to front; reverse with light toning and five small abrasions from past presence of adhesive. Clean.
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