Kara Khota: The Story of a Lost City the Wind Buried

 

Bertha Lum

  1869 - 1954 (biography)

c. 1910  

graphite drawing with white gouache highlights 

14 3/4 x 13" image 

"Berll" Lum in lower right within image 

1 of 1 unique 

Kara Khota Story of a lost city the wind buried /published in World Traveler 

 

illustration board 

 

 

CAAL129 

$4,500.00 

This drawing, done in graphite with white gouache highlights on thick illustration board was done by Bertha Lum around 1928 to accompany a story by her 20 year old daughter Balliet (Catherine) about the lost city of Kara Khota for the magazine World Traveler (pages 39 & 55). Lum would sometimes use a sort of pen name for her illustrative work, in this case signing the work as "Berll Lum." Written in pencil on the verso of the drawing is "Kara Khota Story of a lost city the wind buried /published in World Traveler" Lum was fascinated by the folk tales of Japan and China and many of her images were based on the witches, goblins and other characters and events from these tales. "Kara Khota" is the story of the lost city of gold, buried under sand in the Gobi desert in Mongolia. In this drawing she depicts a devil wind setting down as the residents scatter. The ruins, buried under up to 50 feet of sand and rock, was partially excavated by the Russian archeologist Peter Kozlov in 1896. It was immortalized in 1920 by author James Churchwood in a series of 5 books about the Lost Continent of Mu.