Floral Tailpiece Designs for "The Duchess of Malfi" and "The White Devil"

Author Related author John Webster British
Publisher Related publisher John Lane, The Bodley Head British
ca. 1930
Not on view
Keen worked as a printmaker and illustrator in the 1920s and 1930s, creating unsettling symbolist images reminiscent of Aubrey Beardsley. Two significant commissions were designs for luxury editions published by The Bodley Head–a firm that had launched Beardsley in the 1890s–Oscar Wilde's "Picture of Dorian Gray" (1925) and John Webster's "The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi" (1930). After Keen's early death from tuberculosis, The Twenty-One Gallery in London held a memorial exhibition.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Floral Tailpiece Designs for "The Duchess of Malfi" and "The White Devil"
  • Artist: Henry Weston Keen (British, 1899–1935 Walberswick, Suffolk)
  • Author: Related author John Webster (British, ca. 1580–ca. 1634)
  • Publisher: Related publisher John Lane, The Bodley Head (British, 1854–1925)
  • Date: ca. 1930
  • Medium: Pen and black ink
  • Dimensions: sheet: 15 1/4 x 11 7/8 in. (38.7 x 30.2 cm)
  • Classification: Drawings
  • Credit Line: The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1967
  • Object Number: 67.803.15
  • Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints

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