1931 Ida Rentoul Outhwaite Fairyland lithograph, rare framed antique artwork

Ida Rentoul Outhwaite (1888–1960), And Wept Bitterly, 1931, period black-and-white lithographic illustration plate from the first UK edition of Fairyland of Ida Rentoul Outhwaite, published by A. & C. Black, London, presented in a later black and gilt frame. The image is a beautifully melancholic example of Outhwaite’s fairy-world imagery, combining delicate linework, windswept landscape and a solitary winged figure to create an atmosphere of enchantment, vulnerability and quiet drama. 

53cm x 45cm frame 

25cm x 19cm artwork

Artist biography: Ida Rentoul Outhwaite (1888–1960) was a Melbourne-born illustrator and one of Australia’s most distinctive artists of the Golden Age of children’s illustration. Beginning her publishing career while still a teenager, she became celebrated for intricate pen-and-ink drawings and watercolours populated by fairies, elves and fantastical beings, often set within recognisably Australian landscapes. She collaborated extensively with her sister Annie Rattray Rentoul and her husband Grenbry Outhwaite, with major publications including Elves and Fairies (1916), The Enchanted Forest (1921), The Little Green Road to Fairyland (1922) and Fairyland (first published in Melbourne in 1926). Her work was exhibited in Melbourne, London and Paris and remains an important and highly collectable part of Australian illustration history.