Illustrated manuscript letter with two accompanying original illustrations.

Bookseller Notes

Louisa Corbaux is now best known for her lithographs, for 'Oliver Twist', exhibited at the Great Exhibition of 1851, and for Uncle Tom's Cabin, 1852. She was also responsible for the lithography of the illustrations of her somewhat better known sister, Fanny, who was one of the first artists to advocate that women should be admitted as students to The Royal Academy. This deligthful letter to 'Mrs Davy' opens with a frank assessment of her family's current state 'my Xmas does not chirp better this year [illustrated by a robin perched on a branch]... Winter always tells upon my sister... There is nothing left but to be "content" - a very sudbued sort of satisfaction I own, which inclines one sometimes, like poor Oliver Twist, to ask for more'; but continues in a lighter note, explaining the New Year illustration enclosed, 'Those black cards are "the thing", I know, but I thought they looked too much like little coffins', and deriding current fashion '...one can hardly walk with a skirt so strained across the body and legs. [illustrated with skirted figure in profile] I wonder how any poor "belle" could ever be able to run for her life if a savage cow were to rush after her.... if the "Venus de Mile" could walk out of the British Museum and go about the parks, she would, with her simple, noble and unconscious bearing look a great deal more proper.' She signs off, 'I just popped in a supplementary little fox, an after thought - as it was in my desk, perhaps it may suit some of your young gentlemen? draw lots for it!'