"There was no sound except her footfalls in the snow" illustration for 'Calico Bush' by Allen Lewis

There was no sound except her footfalls in the snow illustration for Calico Bush by Allen Lewis

"There was no sound except her footfalls in the snow" illustration for 'Calico Bush'

Allen Lewis

Title

"There was no sound except her footfalls in the snow" illustration for 'Calico Bush'

 
Artist

Allen Lewis

  1873 - 1957 (biography)
Year
c. 1931  
Technique
two-color woodengraving 
Image Size
5 7/8 x 4 3/8" image 
Signature
pencil, lower left 
Edition Size
Ed 100 (edition of 100) 
Annotations
inscribed: "imp" after signature; artist's monogram within image in lower left 
Reference
used as an illustration in Calico Bush by Rachel Field, 1931, Part Three: Winter. 
Paper
ivory wove 
State
published 
Publisher
artist, aside from the book illustrations 
Inventory ID
20103 
Price
SOLD
Description

This color woodengraving was one of four commissioned as illustrations for Rachel Field's book "Calico Bush", published in 1931. The image was for Part Three: Winter and was also used on the cover of later editions. This impression is one that the artist published in an edition of 100, signed and annotated "Imp".

The text for this illustration reads, in part: "The cold was intense, but her blood was quick and the old homespun cloak and hood enveloped her warmly. There was no sound except her footfalls in the snow....She set down the half-filled basket of cones, folded her hands piously under the cloak and began the first simple little chant she had ever learned, 'Noel - Noel - Noel'". Her chant was answered in kind by the Native American brave visible behind the tree at the left.

Rachel Field's most noted book, "Calico Bush" features a young French girl abandoned in the New World in the mid-seventeen hundreds who finds herself bound-out to a family who has recently bought a farm in the relatively wild lands of coastal Massachusetts. Marguerite is an outcast in this family, ridiculed for her French ancestry in a time when the French are considered as dangerous an enemy as the Native Americans.

However, Marguerite proves herself to be an asset to the family on multiple occasions when she saves the children from harm, rescues the family animals, and keeps the Indians from attacking their house. "Calico Bush" illustrates the struggles of early settlers through the eyes of a true, if somewhat unwilling, immigrant.