“Home Returning at the Gloaming” from “Caw Caw” by Jemima Blackburn

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Home Returning at the Gloaming

Jemima Blackburn (née Wedderburn) (1823-1909),

1862

From an online version at (Project Gutenberg

The artist's initials appear at bottom left.

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This illustration is noteworthy for the way the design frames the text. Blackburn captures the farmers in the process of gathering up the slaughtered crows and tying them in bundles to sling across their workhorses as they home at the gloaming. In the bottom right she draws one farmer and his family about to eat a crow pie that also eerily anticipates Beatrix Potter’s Peter Rabbit (1902) illustration of Mr. McGregor poised to devour Peter’s father, put in a rabbit pie by Mrs. McGregor. Blackburn’s plate is much more detailed than Potter’s, but one wonders if Potter, a fan of Blackburn’s work, used this drawing as a model for her own.

Bibliography

PM [Blackburn, Jemima]. Caw Caw or a Chronicle of Crows. A Tale of the Spring-time by PM. Illustrated by JB. London: Grant & Griffith, [nd]. Project Gutenberg

Last modified 11 February 2021