PICK-ME-UP OR KNOCK-ME-DOWN

Original 10 3/4 inch x 8 1/4 inch Wood Engraved Cartoon page titled PICK-ME-UP OR KNOCK-ME-DOWN from Punch, February 16, 1910.

Herbert Henry Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith, KG, PC, KC, FRS (12 September 1852 – 15 February 1928), generally known as H. H. Asquith, was a British statesman and Liberal politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1908 to 1916. In 1910 Lloyd George and Churchill were the leading forces in the Liberals’ appeal to the voters; Asquith, clearly tired, took to the hustings for a total of two weeks during the campaign, and when the polls began, journeyed to Cannes with such speed that he neglected an engagement with the King, to the monarch’s annoyance. The result was a hung parliament.

The cartoon is by Leonard Raven-Hill (1867 – 1942). An English artist, illustrator and cartoonist. He was born in Bath and educated at Bristol Grammar School and the Devon county school. He studied art at the Lambeth School of Art and then in Paris under MM. Bougereau and Aimé Morot. He began to exhibit at the Salon in 1887 but moved back to London when he was appointed as the art editor of Pick-Me-Up. He also continued to work as a painter and exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1889. In 1893 he founded, with Arnold Golsworthy, the humorous and artistic monthly The Butterfly (1893–94, revived in 1899-1900) but began his most prominent association with a publication when his drawings appeared in Punch in December 1895. By 1901 he had joined the staff of Punch as the junior political cartoonist. He contributed to many other illustrated magazines including The Daily Graphic, Daily Chronicle, The Strand Magazine, The Sketch, Pall Mall Gazette and Windsor Magazine.

Punch, or The London Charivari, was a British weekly magazine of humour and satire established in 1841 by Henry Mayhew and wood-engraver Ebenezer Landells. Historically, it was most influential in the 1840s and 1850s, when it helped to coin the term “cartoon” in its modern sense as a humorous illustration.

The page is in very good condition with light foxing. Reverse side blank.