Walter Crane.—This popular artist was born in Liverpool, August 15, 1845, his father being sometime secretary and treasurer of the (then) Liverpool Academy. After a boyhood spent mostly at Torquay the family came to London in 1857. In 1859 he became a pupil of Mr. W. J. Linton, the well-known engraver, and remained with him for three years. About 1865 he first saw the work of Burne-Jones at the Society of Painters in Water Colours. These drawings, and some Japanese toy-books which fell in his way, have no doubt strongly influenced his style; but the earlier pre-Raphaelites and the Once a Week school had been eagerly studied before. Although Mr. Crane, with his distinctly individual manner, is not a typical artist of the sixties any more than of the seventies, or of to-day, and although his style had hardly found its full expression at that time, except in the toy-books, yet no record of the period could be complete without a notice of one whose loyalty to a particular style has done much to found the modern 'decorative school.'
WALTER CRANE
'GOOD WORDS'
1863, p. 795
TREASURE-TROVE
His first published drawing, A man in the coils of a serpent, appears in a quite forgotten magazine called Entertaining Things, vol. i. 1861, p. 327 (Virtue); others, immature, and spoilt by the engraver, are in The Talking Fire-irons and similar tracts by the Rev. H. B. Power. In many of the magazines, of which the contents are duly noted,—Good Words, Once a Week, The Argosy, London Society, etc.—reference has been already made to each of his drawings as it appeared therein. A bibliography of his work, to be exhaustive, would take up more room than space permitted here. As it will be the task of the one, whoever he may be, who undertakes to chronicle English illustrations of the seventies, it may be left without further notice. For, with the exception of the New Forest (1862), all the other books which may be called masterpieces of their order, Grimms' Household Stories, The Necklace of Princess Fiorimonde, The Baby's Bouquet, Baby's Opera, Æsop's Fables, Flora's Feast, Queen Summer, the long series of Mrs. Molesworth's children's books, many 'coloured boards' for novels, and the rest, belong to a later period.
To find that a large paper copy of Grimms' Household Stories fetched thirty-six pounds at Lord Leighton's sale is a proof that collectors of 'Cranes' are already in full cry. Two hundred and fifty copies of this book were issued in large paper; the copy in question, although handsomely bound, did not derive its value solely from that fact. Modern readers rubbed their eyes to find a recent édition de luxe fetching a record price; but, if certain signs are not misleading, the market value of many books of the sixties will show a rapid increase that will surprise the apathetic collector, who now regards them as commonplace. To believe that the worth of anything is just as much as it will bring is a most foolish test of intrinsic value; but, should the auctioneer's marked catalogue of a few years hence show that 'the sixties' produced works which coax the reluctant guineas out of the pockets of those who a short time before would not expend shillings, it will but reflect the well-seasoned verdict of artists for years past. In matters of science and of commerce the man in the street acts on the opinion of the expert, but in matters of art he usually prefers his own. If, when he wakens to the intrinsic value of objects about which artists know no difference of opinion, he has to pay heavily for his conceited belief in his own judgment, it is at once poetic justice and good common sense.
Space forbids, unfortunately, detailed notices of Fred Barnard, C. H. Bennett, T. Morten, George Du Maurier, John Pettie, R.A., and many other deceased artists whose works have been frequently referred to in previous chapters.
Fairly complete iconographies had been prepared of the works of Mr. Birket Foster, Sir John Gilbert, and Ernest Griset. These, and other no less important lists, have also been omitted for the same reason.
Nor is it necessary to include here notices of artists whose fame has been established in another realm of art—such as Mr. Whistler, Mr. Luke Fildes, R.A., Professor Herkomer, R.A., Messrs. W. Q. Orchardson, R.A., H. S. Marks, R.A., H. H. Armstead, R.A., Edmund J. Poynter, R.A., G. H. Boughton, J. W. North, R.A., and George Frederick Watts, R.A.