2-979-535 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

"The Little Scarecrow" - painted by T. Dicksee - from the Exhibition of the British Institution, 1857. Engraving of a painting. 'Mr. Dicksee must have been in the humour of Sterne when he conceived the subject of his picture...It is as oddly misleading and mystifying in title, as it is delightfully simple and unaffected in treatment. Such a charming little gem of rusticity might have been set in an idyl of Theocritus, a description by Thomson, or a stanza by Wordsworth. Lest our readers are somewhat incredulous, however, we will at once inform them that the "Scarecrow" is not a figure with a crownless hat and its coat buttoned at the back undergoing the Hindoo torture of holding the arms constantly at right angles with the body - and this, too, after having apparently undergone the amputation of both legs...It is simply a chubby little - but our Engraving...will afford the best explanation'. From "Illustrated London News", 1857.