Phil May, RI RP NEAC, 
British 1864-1903- 
Seven Character Sketches; 
two pencil, pen and black...

Phil May, RI RP NEAC, 
British 1864-1903- 

Seven Character Sketches; 

two pencil, pen and black ink on paper; two pen and black ink on paper; two pen, black ink, and coloured chalk on paper; one pencil on paper, five signed 'Phil May', two signed with initials ‘PM’, variously inscribed and dated, 36 x 26.6 cm. and smaller; together with a pen and black ink drawing for ‘Punch’, 1909, by Leonard Raven-Hill (1867-1942), signed 'L Raven Hill' (lower left), entitled ‘Our Municipal Election’, and inscribed; and a pen, brown ink, and watercolour sketch of a couple by Alfred Crowquill (Alfred Henry Forrester) (1804-1872), signed 'Alfred Crowquill' (lower right), nine (9), (part unframed / mounted). 

Provenance: 
The late Barry Cambray Bloomfield (1931-2002), former Head of Collection Development at the British Library. 
from whose widow gifted to the present owner. 

Exhibited: 
London, Leicester Galleries, ‘Exhibition of Works by Phil May’, December 1908, no.107 (part). 

Note: 
May was best known as a caricaturist, whose illustration style was highly influential in the development of cartoons in the early 20th century. He was particularly celebrated for his economy of line, which the present drawings clearly exhibit, and which marked a departure from the often more elaborate style of earlier Victorian illustration. Many of May's works are humorous studies of society and manners in 19th-century Britain, with one of the present drawings accompanied by the inscription 'Little Jones (who has been brought to a dance by a friend and has not been introduced to all the family). "Awfully slow affair this, I'm off. Are you going to make a move?" Son of the House. "I can't, I live here"'.