Swann Galleries - Illustration Art - Sale 2372 - January 22, 2015

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266 ● ARTHUR SZYK.
They Lifted Bad-Al-Din Hasan onTheirWings.Watercolor on paper. Illustration from the
4-volume edition of Arabian Nights Entertainments, Limited Editions Club, New York,
1954. 146x108 mm; 53/4x41/4 inches. Inscribed (not by Szyk) lower center (illegible): “op:
241-296 / —Nights 20-24 / “They Lifted Bad-Al-Din Hasan onTheirWings . . .TheTale
of Nur-Al -Din / and His Son. / XXX.”Tipped to matte, archivally matted and framed.
[4,000/6,000]
Born in Lodz, Poland, the great Jewish artist, illustrator and caricaturist Arthur Szyk fled Nazi
oppression and eventually settled in the United States in 1940.The precision of his line, the jewel-
like colors and meticulous, compact compositions drew greatly on his deep admiration for medieval
illuminated manuscripts and Persian miniatures. Like Arthur Rackham’s edition of TheWind in the
Willows (1940) and Edmund Dulac’sThe Masque of Comus (1954), Szyk’s massive four-volumed
The Arabian Nights (1954) was issued posthumously without the limitation leaf signed by the artist.