Sixteen Illustrations of Subjects from Kipling's "Jungle Book
ref. 06188London: Macmillan & Co. Limited 1903. Beauty That Hath Terror in It" The Detmold Brothers' Sublime and Unsettling Vision of The Jungle Book The Magnificent Original 1903 Folio Portfolio with Sixteen Superb Color Plates KIPLING Rudyard. DETMOLD Maurice & Edward J. illustrators. Sixteen Illustrations of Subjects from Kipling's "Jungle Book" by Messrs. Maurice & Edward Detmold. London: Macmillan & Co. Limited 1903. First edition. Reportedly limited to 500 copies for England and America. Folio 21 3/8 x 15 1/2 inches; 543 x 394 mm. Title-page contents leaf and sixteen magnificent color plates tipped onto white boards within gray window mounts each accompanied by a protective cover sheet bearing the title and a short extract from Kipling's text. Title-page and list of illustrations expertly repaired at folds; second plate description with short marginal tear; some light foxing to text leaves and mounts only. The plates themselves are remarkably clean fresh and beautifully preserved. Original publisher's green cloth portfolio front cover decoratively stamped and lettered in gilt retaining one of the two original green silk ties. An excellent example of one of the most magnificent and celebrated achievements of Edwardian book illustration exceptionally scarce complete with all sixteen plates. Published in 1903 when the extraordinary twin brothers Maurice and Edward Julius Detmold were just twenty years old this monumental portfolio represents the culmination of their artistic collaboration and one of the finest visual interpretations of Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book ever produced. The sixteen superb compositions reveal an astonishing maturity of conception and execution. Combining meticulous natural history observation with an intensely personal decorative imagination the Detmolds created a world at once beautiful mysterious and faintly menacing in which the distinction between the natural and the supernatural seems perpetually uncertain. Animals are rendered with extraordinary anatomical precision their musculature fur scales and movement observed with almost scientific exactitude. Yet these are far more than zoological studies. Wolves possess an almost monumental dignity; panthers move with a sinister effortless grace; serpents coil with hypnotic inevitability; and the great tiger Shere Khan emerges as an embodiment of majestic and terrifying power. The brothers' remarkable understanding of animal character is matched by their sensitivity to atmosphere and composition. Their creatures appear not merely as participants in Kipling's narratives but as independent beings endowed with intelligence memory and an almost human consciousness. Particularly striking are the representations of Mowgli whose slender youthful figure is repeatedly contrasted with the formidable creatures surrounding him. His vulnerability is balanced by a quiet assurance suggesting his extraordinary position between the human and animal worlds. The Detmolds avoid the sentimentality often associated with illustrations of childhood instead emphasizing Mowgli's intimate identification with the jungle and its inhabitants. In the celebrated scenes depicting Bagheera Baloo Akela and the Monkey People the artists achieve an extraordinary balance between narrative drama and decorative design. The Monkey People particularly in their ruined architectural surroundings are among the most unsettling creations in the series their restless gestures and grotesque attitudes suggesting a strange parody of human society. Equally remarkable is the brothers' use of color. Their sumptuous yet carefully controlled palette of burnished browns smoky grays subdued greens and golden ochres lends the compositions an almost dreamlike quality. Subtle gradations of tone together with intricate patterns of foliage fur and stone produce a richness and unity of design seldom equaled in contemporary illustration. The original large-format plates possess a depth delicacy and painterly quality that cannot be fully appreciated in the considerably reduced reproductions of the later book edition of 1908. Presented individually within their original window mounts they have the presence and visual authority of original watercolors. Indeed so successful were these images as independent works of art that many portfolios were subsequently broken up their individual plates removed for framing. The survival of a complete portfolio particularly one retaining its original publisher's cloth case and with the plates in such fresh condition is consequently especially desirable. The contemporary critical reception was enthusiastic. Reviewing the London exhibition of the original paintings the Manchester Guardian of November 5 1903 declared that the brothers: "are able to prevent their work from ever sinking to the level of mere illustration". The reviewer particularly admired the depiction of the Monkey People in the Cold Lairs describing it as: "full of character subtle observation and invention". Of the representation of Bagheera in Mowgli and the Red Flower the reviewer memorably observed that it possessed: "something of that beauty which hath terror in it". The same review praised the convincing and engaging portrayals of Baloo Nag Kaa and Akela recognizing in the Detmolds' work an extraordinary fusion of imaginative invention and naturalistic observation. A report published in the New York Times on December 5 1903 stated that the edition was strictly limited to 500 copies for England and America emphasizing the exclusivity of this magnificent production from the outset. The portfolio is particularly significant in the history of the Detmold brothers' careers. Born in 1883 Maurice and Edward developed their exceptional artistic talents together displaying an early and remarkable aptitude for the representation of birds animals and the natural world. Their close collaboration produced some of the most distinctive illustrated publications of the opening years of the twentieth century. Tragically Maurice took his own life in 1908 bringing their artistic partnership to a premature end. Edward continued to enjoy a distinguished career as an illustrator but the works produced jointly by the brothers retain a unique place in the history of British illustration. As Richard Dalby observed the paintings were admired for their realistic detail and decorative arrangement while Diana Johnson identified the extraordinary tension between their scientific naturalism and ornamental imagination a combination capable of producing images both fanciful and profoundly disturbing. A masterpiece of the Golden Age of Illustration this spectacular portfolio stands among the finest achievements of the Detmold brothers and one of the most beautiful and psychologically compelling interpretations of Kipling's immortal jungle stories. Complete examples of the original 1903 folio portfolio are increasingly difficult to obtain and the present copy with all sixteen plates clean and fresh and preserved in its original gilt-decorated publisher's portfolio is an especially attractive survival. London: Macmillan & Co., Limited, 1903 unknown
David Brass Rare Books, Inc. · United States$5,000.00≈ €4,467.08
