Naked Man Dead, circa 1929

Description

Eric Gill paid Gibbings ¬£200 for the blocks that the Golden Cockerel Press had commissioned up to 1933.  As with others he cut many of these to sculptured shapes, filled the engraving with a gesso-like substance, and sold them or gave them away as ornaments; thus ensuring that no further prints could be taken’, Christopher Skelton, (introduction to Eric Gill, The Engravings, p 13).

Used as a border design for the Golden Cockerel Press edition of The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer (Waltham St. Lawrence, 1929-31). 178×30 mm; 7×1 1/4 inches, incised with Gill’s initials and numbered 284 (Gill’s reference number), block blindstamped by the carver, “T. Lawrence” (Thomas Neale Lawrence), wooden base measures 1×2 1/4 high, 1 3/4 deep. Skelton/Physick 569.

The image created from this block appeared 10 times throughout the volumes of The Canterbury Tales. Subsequently, it was printed as Plate 27 of Engravings 1928-1933 (London: Faber & Faber, Ltd., 1934). [Waltham St. Lawrence, 1929]