[VICTORIAN WOMEN - ORIGINAL ARTWORK]. [A calendar of poor and affluent women, being a series of twelve mounted pen and ink drawings heightened with watercolors, the whole ensemble mounted on two huge panels]

S.l., 1890. Very good. Twelve individual images executed on thick card, each approximately 145 x 220 mm, each done in pen, ink and watercolor, captioned below in manuscript, mounted on two tall panels (995 x 260 mm). Images generally bright, though with occasional minor spotting, each with pencil note on verso giving the month; mounted with later brown framing tape, the image for June with offprint on verso from another image (clearly a woman's dress, for which see below), the large mattes foxed, browned and stained in parts, extremities bumped and somewhat worn in places. A remarkable survival. CONTRASTING (MIS)FORTUNES OF YOUNG WOMEN IN LONDON AND ELSEWHERE DURING THE VICTORIAN ERA, FROM THE DESTITUTE TO THE EXALTED, BEING AN EVOCATIVE SERIES OF PEN-AND-INK DRAWINGS HEIGHTENED WITH WATERCOLOR, PRESENTING A WORDLESS (YET POWERFUL) SOCIAL COMMENTARY.

While our drawings are unsigned, the facial features, settings, costumes, interiors and exteriors, and compositions are strongly reminiscent of William Gray (fl. 1865), a shadowy artist whose only known publication was "Social Contrasts," a series of 22 colored lithographs on 12 leaves of plates. Both works depict the plight of women in various London settings, vividly contrasting the lives of the rich and poor, and hinting at the underworld that lurked beyond the glittering lights. 

While Gray's "Social Contrasts" is moralistic, portraying women young and old "before the fall" and "after the fall," our Calendar has no such agenda, and furthermore the focus is on young women exclusively. Redolent of other social satirists such as George Cruikshank and Henry Mayhew, our twelve Calendar images encapsulate the Victorian obsession and fascination with both the lighter and darker sides of society so famously depicted by Charles Dickens. 

Our Calendar drawings do not appear to have been published, and some are certainly more finished than others. The subjects of the twelve months are:

JANUARY: in the dark of night an impoverished young woman and her two children huddle in the snow around a brazier, while dark figures loom in the background; this scene was obviously inspired by an image in Gray's "Social Contrasts [of Women]" (the print is entitled "Within / Without");
FEBRUARY: a well-dresssed young lady with her suitor cheerfully skate on a frozen pond;
MARCH: a distressed group of four malnourished women gather in a crumbling garret, illuminated by a single candle: two of them are sewing, one is wailing with her arms extended, casting a foreboding shadow upon the cracked wall, and one is sitting on the floor (despite the appearance of an empty chair in the shadows behind her), the head and hands of her defeated-looking daughter resting in her lap;
APRIL: during an "April shower" two fashionable ladies and one gentleman walk through the streets with umbrellas; in the background a woman of considerably inferior means (and no umbrella) gazes at the smartly dressed pedestrians;
MAY: a woman of supreme elegance is outside the door of the Royal Italian Opera Theatre (founded 1847) in Covent Garden which was featuring a production of "Don Giovanni"; because this woman is unaccompanied (and bareheaded), one wonders if in fact she is one of the performers inside the theater, making her entrance through the proscenium arch. The Royal Italian Opera House was renamed "Royal Opera House" in 1892;
JUNE: two women are riding in the back of a carriage, one of whom has her neckerchief trailing behind her in the wind;
JULY: four ladies enjoying a recreational swim in the sea (in Devon?) next to the safety and respectability of that most amazing vehicle of Victorian prudishness, the bathing machine; eight other bathing machines can be seen along the shore in the background;
AUGUST: a group of three women and two men enjoy a merry game of croquet;
SEPTEMBER: a vacationing family promenades along a blustery sea-front (of Dover?);
OCTOBER: a couple dances in a high-society ball;
NOVEMBER: a distressing and macabre scene along the waterfront (the Thames?): beneath a dark arched bridge two men (one of whom is a Bow Street Runner) stand over the body of a dead woman whose body lies supine on the ground, her arms splayed out. The drawing graphically illustrates the perils and evils that lurked for unsuspecting women on the streets of London.
DECEMBER: a mother watches over her father (or husband) joyfully cradling a newborn child (at Christmas?).

It is unclear if the series was created for publication or for private enjoyment. Presently the drawings are mounted to the backs of the mattes with wide framing tape (see images), and appear to have been glued to the backs of the mattes, therefore some clue to the identity of the artist maybe hidden from view currently. Clearly executed by a skilled artist, however, it is a striking and fascinating piece of social history.

A NOTE concerning the verso of the illustration for the month of June: here we find a partially printed lithograph of a woman's dress, the most visible portion being the collar, in black ink, with faint light-blue inking inside it. That an (unfinished) lithograph of a woman's dress appears on the back of this (unfinished) drawing which resembles William Gray's lithographic work does not automatically suggest that the artist of our ensemble was William Gray himself. However, when digging for clues: "Dig We Must.