This is a genuine, original, pretty vintage print rescued from a disbound book; one of the Flower Fairies series. Date Published: Printed between 1928 & 1940 by Blackie & Son Ltd in Great Britain Print size: 4 inches x 5 1/2 inches Image size: 3 inches x 4 1/4 inches The lithograph has a characteristic patina which is natural for vintage paper, but is in great condition - this is an ORIGINAL Book Plate, NOT A COPY OR REPRODUCTION! MULTIPLE ITEM SHIPPING DISCOUNT: I WILL COMBINE ANY NUMBER OF PRINTS in ONE PACKAGE & CHARGE ONLY ONE SHIPPING FEE! ALL PRINTS ARE PACKED in AN ACETATE-FREE BAG & DISPATCHED in A STURDY HARD BACKED DO NOT BEND ENVELOPE. Cicely Mary Barker was born in 1895 in Croydon, South London, & spent most of her life there. Because of ill-health she was educated at home & largely taught herself to draw & paint, encouraged by a supportive family & assisted by membership of the Croydon Art Society. She was only sixteen when she had her first work acepted for publication as a set of postcards, & from that time she devoted her career to painting. It was her Flower Fairies that brought Cicely Mary Barker her greatest popular acclaim. Like the pre-Raphaelite painters whom she so much admired, she believed in recreating the beauty of nature in art & in drawing from real life. Her plants & flowers were observed with complete botanical accuracy & in the fairies themselves, she captured perfectly the unselfconscious grace of children, whom she used to sketch in her sister’s school. Cicely once wrote: So let me say quite plainly, that I have drawn all the plants & flowers very carefully, from real ones; & everything that I have said about them is as true as I could make it. But I have never seen a fairy; the fairies & all about them are just ‘pretend’. This unique blend of accuracy & fantasy had by then established a popularity for the Flower Fairies books which endures to this day, both for our children & for many of us grown-ups too! Flower Fairies The Rose-Bay Willow-Herb Fairy Vintage Print C1930 By Cicely Mary Barker
