"The Little Gate, Harper's Monthly Magazine Illustration" Lot no. 2778
By Elizabeth Shippen Green (1871-1954)
1914 (Estimated)
24.00" x 16.00", Framed 31.00" x 22.50"
Oil on Board
Signed Lower Center
SOLD
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SOLD
Illustration for Harper’s New Monthly Magazine Volume 130, December 1914
"The Child in the Garden"- First of Four paintings, this one entitled "The Little Gate" pg 70
This charming painting of two children gazing eagerly into the garden beyond, captures the sense of adventure that the desire to explore would inspire. It is based on a poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning and appeared in HARPERS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE, Volume 130, December 1914 – May 1915. The picture is an example of the expressive use of contrast between the pastel shades of the children’s clothing and the dark prison-like gates and mysterious green space beyond. It also makes use of the special expressiveness of the children’s backs, an idea that leaves something to the imagination of the viewer.
Explore related art collections: Brandywine School / Magazine Stories / Children / Family / Books / Beach/Summer / 1910s / Women Artists
See all original artwork by Elizabeth Shippen Green
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Elizabeth Shippen Green, later Mrs. Huger Elliot, was born in Philadelphia and studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts with Robert Vonnoh and Thomas Eakins. She also studied with Howard Pyle at the Drexel Institute where she met Jessie Willcox Smith and Violet Oakley. The three became close friends and shared studios for many years.
Although Elizabeth did some early illustrations for The Ladies’ Home Journal and The Saturday Evening Post, as well as a number of books, for many years she was under exclusive contract with Harper’s Monthly. Her sensitive work is also decorative, with rounded edges and hand-hewn lines, similar in concept to that of stained glass windows. In a time when magazines used color very sparingly, a large percentage of her illustration work was reproduced in full color, which she handled brilliantly. Because she worked in a bold outline, her pictures reproduced equally well in color or in black and white.