REX WHISTLER’S DELICIOUSLY INSCRIBED COPY: The House of Memories

A richly provenanced copy of this memoir of an Englishwoman in Paris, first acquired by the artist Rex Whistler, probably around the time of the book’s publication and his own first visit to the French capital in 1931. Subsequently the book was owned by Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin’s second son, Arthur Baldwin whose ownership inscription on the front flyleaf dates to 1970 - it was Stanley Baldwin who had unveiled Rex Whistler’s Tate Gallery murals in February 1930, thereby creating an intriguing web of association around this copy.

Black publisher’s cloth; splitting along the lower hinge not affecting binding though the backstrip may have been glued into place. The text is clean throughout, no further annotation.

Rex Whistler (1905-1944) was a leading artistic chronicler of the inter-war years who would die during the invasion of France in 1944.

Barbara Wilson (daughter of Thomas Lister, 4th Baron Ribblesdale - see his great Singer Sargent portrait) lived much of her younger life in Paris which she first visited in the mid-1890s. She married Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Mathew Richard Henry Wilson, 4th Baronet.