Item #131279 'Another Lapsus Linguae' (the headline caption for an original artwork). Lionel LINDSAY.
LINDSAY, Lionel (1874-1961)

'Another Lapsus Linguae' (the headline caption for an original artwork)

Pen, pencil and wash on paper, matted (with a gilt fillet) and behind glass in a contemporary wooden frame: visible image size 245 × 183 mm, visible mat size 360 × 280 mm, external dimensions 465 × 385 mm.

Apart from minor loss to the original backing paper (which still retains the label of the Adelaide framers, Dimond Bros.), the frame and contents are in fine condition.

The signature of the artist is scratched into the bottom right-hand corner of the artwork. The bottom panel of the wood-veneer mat is dated and credited in white ink: '20-7-16 | Original drawing by Lionel Lindsay'. The six-line joke is also inscribed there in full:

'ANOTHER LAPSUS LINGUAE.

Country Doctor: "Been ill long?"

Distant Voice: "Off an' on about three weeks, Doctor."

C.D.: "Where are the pains?"

D. Voice: "In my side, Doctor."

C.D.: "Hem! Now let me see your tongue."'

Lionel Lindsay spent most of 1902 overseas; he 'returned to Sydney early in 1903, where Banjo Paterson offered him a job as a cartoonist for £4 per week with the right to contribute illustrations to the "Bulletin." At Woollahra on 20 November he married Jean Dyson and began to make drawings and etchings of old buildings in The Rocks area, much of which was being demolished for fear of another outbreak of the plague. After these etchings were shown in the 1907 exhibition of the Society of Artists, Sydney, a new vogue for etching began. Between 1905 and 1919 Lionel illustrated twenty-six books published by the New South Wales Bookstall Co. and was active as a contributor and reader for the "Lone Hand"; he was president of the Australian Painter-Etchers' Society for three years after its foundation in 1921' ('Australian Dictionary of Biography'). The humorous nature of the piece suggests it would have been at home in the 'Bulletin,' but this most attractive presentation of the original artwork is something out of the ordinary.

Item #131279

Price (AUD): $2,500.00

See all items by Lionel LINDSAY