But the Queen held her brows and gazed
And said, ‘It is the glare of torches there’
Dante Gabrel Rossetti’s “The Staff and Scrip.” Henry Holiday (1839-1927), artist. Charles Albert Waltner, etcher. Holiday’s illustrations are the finest examples of Pre-Raphaelite illustration in this volume. His frontispiece is particularly noteworthy and certainly the most accomplished illustration in the entire book.
Holiday made five illustrations for Volume II of Illustrated British Ballads, Old and New, which was edited by George Barnett Smith and published by Cassell, Petter, Galpin & Co. in two volumes in 1881.The frontispiece illustration for “The Staff and Scrip” was etched by Charles Albert Waltner while E. Babbage engraved the other four illustrations on wood. Although Holiday’s illustrations for Carroll are eccentric and atypical, those for Illustrated British Ballads are totally characteristic of his work in other media. Holiday is particularly effective when illustrating poems by his friends D. G. Rossetti and William Morris.
Bibliography
Henry Holiday. Illustrated British Ballads, Old and New. Ed. by George Barnett Smith. 2 vols. London: Cassell, Petter, Galpin & Co., 1881.
Last modified 19 January 2023