Innocent Gallery

With Lippes as Cold as any Stone, They Kist The Children Small, c1878. Creator

With Lippes as Cold as any Stone, They Kist The Children Small, c1878. The dying parents give the Babes a farewell kiss as their uncle feigns grief. A ballad of c1600 tells the story of the owner of Wayland Hall, Norfolk, who died leaving his infant son and daughter in the care of his brother. If both children should die before the uncle he would inherit their wealth. After a year, greed overcame duty and family affection. From "The Babes (or Children) in the Wood", illustrated by Randolph Caldecott. [London, c1878]

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The Tulip and the Butterfly Appear in gayer Coats than I, 1832, (1947). Creator: Unknown

The Tulip and the Butterfly Appear in gayer Coats than I, 1832, (1947). Two children, one reading and the other wearing a sheer dress. Illustration to a hymn tilted Against Pride In Clothes'. Page, coloured by John Constable for his daughter Emily from "Songs, Divine and Moral, for the Use of Children" by Isaac Watts, first published in 1715. Constable wrote: I have coloured all the pictures in Dr Watt's Hymn book for Dear Emily, to be sent on her birth day, it looks very pretty'. In the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London. Published in "English Hymns and Hymn Writers", by Adam Fox. [Collins, London, 1947]

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St. Christopher. 1423, 1915. Creator: Unknown

St. Christopher. 1423, St Christopher (Christ-bearer) carrying Christ across the stream. Legend has it that St Christopher was a 3rd century Canaanite giant whose task was to carry travellers across the water. One day he had to carry a child across the stream, but as he did so the child grew continually heavier until it seemed to Christopher that he was carrying the weight of the whole world on his shoulders. When questioned the child revealed himself as Christ, and as proof ordered Christopher to plant his staff in the ground. The next morning the staff had been miraculously transformed into a fruit-bearing palm tree. The miracle led to many people converting to Christianity, which enraged the local ruler, who had Christopher imprisoned, tortured and finally, beheaded. 1915. From "Woodcuts of the Fifteenth Century in the John Rylands Library - Manchester". [The University Press, Longmans, Green & Company and Bernard Quaritch, Manchester, London, New York, Bombay, Calcutta, Madras, 1915]

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