Flower Girl, Dury Lane. by Sir William Nicholson, 1872-1949

Sir William Nicholson, 1872-1949
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Flower Girl, Dury Lane.

Original woodcut in black ink with hand colouring. 1898. Signed in ink. From the special hand-printed and hand-coloured edition of 40 impressions, pulled direct from the original woodblocks by Nicholson. Issued in the series: London Types, de-luxe portfolio edition, 1898. Issued by Heinemann, 1898. Rare.

Excellent impression with very fresh colours. On off-white india (china) paper laid onto a stiff pale cream wove backing sheet, as issued. Excellent condition; the very faintest traces of time toning etc in the margins. The backboard with full margins. Board size: approx 53 x 50.5mm.

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William Nicholson's woodblock prints of the 1890's were amongst the most revolutionary British print images of the era. They used a treatment of form, with a stylised simplification of shape, and a handling of perspective and picture space which had had no precedent in British art. Influences of Japanese art, and a parallel thinking to, if not a direct knowledge of, the ideas of Toulouse Lautrec and of the Nabis painters in Paris at the same period can certainly be felt, although there is no record that Nicholson had actually studied either at this date.

One of the most famous of the groups of prints that Nicholson cut at this period was the series known as 'London Types'. This was made at the instigation of William Heinemann, who published all William Nicholson's early prints, as a follow-up to the portrait of Queen Victoria which had established his reputation. The series portrays typical figures from London life of the period. The girls who sate wit the baskets of flowers for sale were a familiar sight near 'Rotten Row' where the fashionable people of London society rode out on their horses at the edge of Hyde Park by Park Lane.

Only the 'deluxe' impressions of Nicholson's London Types woodcuts were printed direct from his blocks. These impressions, as here, were hand-printed and hand coloured by him in editions of only 40 impressions. All the other impressions of the so-called popular editions were printed by taking a transfer from his block onto a lithographic stone and adding lithograph colour. The original direct woodblock impressions are rare.