Cruikshank's Water Colours. (A Collection of Victorian Illustrations)

More-over, it may be regarded as a fortunate circumstance that the three works, here reproduced with amazing fidelity in facsimile, represent happily the very chefs d'oeuvre of his wonderful productions; in their respective categories, preserving the best examples of his remarkable genius as an imaginative creator of vivid pictures, alike stirring and animated, and representing at one glance his vast dramatic powers, his mastery of the humorous side of life, and the intensity he was consistently able to infuse into terrible and tragic scenes. It is noteworthy that the inimitable artist George Cruikshank but rarely pro-duced finished water-colour drawings; the bulk of his prolific and familiarly rec-ognised designs for book illustrations were mostly dainty pencil sketches, occa-sionally finished in pen and ink.
It is a problem difficult to solve satisfactorily whether, beyond the three memorable instances of the works here reproduced in facsimile, there are in existence any other complete suites of original illustrations by George Cruikshank-that is to say, fully executed by his master hand as finished water-colour drawings.