Signed and titled in pencil by the artist.

A scene designed and engraved by Agnes Miller Parker for an illustrated 1940 edition of A. E. Housman’s ‘A Shropshire Lad’. The print depicts a moment from the ‘Hughley Steeple’ poem near the end of the collection:

‘Oh I have been to Ludlow fair
And left my necktie God knows where,
And carried half-way home, or near,
Pints and quarts of Ludlow beer:
Then the world seemed none so bad,
And I myself a sterling lad;
And down in lovely muck I've lain,
Happy till I woke again.’

The print depicts a male figure laying beneath a tree, his face turned to the left, obscured from the viewer. His tie is discarded and hanging from a branch of the tree, his hat lies near his feet. To the left a small bird is inquisitively looking at the man.

Agnes Miller Parker (1895–1980) was born in Ayrshire, Scotland and studied art at the Glasgow School of Art. She was primarily an illustrator and taught in London during the 1920’s. After marrying she worked at the Gregynog Press with her husband, William McCance, and her former tutors, Gertrude Hermes and Blair Hughes-Stanton. The main body of her work consists of wood-engravings for book illustrations that demonstrate fine draughtsmanship and skilful use of black and white design. She exhibited at the Society of Wood Engravers, of which she was a member and she illustrated books for Gregynog, Golden Cockerel Press and for Limited Editions Club of New York. She illustrated The Fables of Aesop (1931), Through the Woods by H. E. Bates (1936), The Open Air by Richard Jefferies (1949) and her most acclaimed work, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard by Thomas Gray (1938).

Ex Col: Merlin Hanbury-Tracy, 7th Baron Sudeley.

Condition: Even toning from previous mount. Tape residue on verso from previous mount.