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Overview
The illustrator and printmaker Stephen Gooden (1892-1955) was born in Rugby and attended Rugby School, studying at the Slade School of Fine Art from 1903-13. After serving in World War One, he worked with lithography, wood engraving and etching. By the 1920s he was concentrating on copper engraving and worked with the Nonesuch Press. He exhibited with the Royal Society of Painters Engravers, Royal Society of Minature Painters, Royal Academy and the New English Art Club and was elected a Royal Academician in 1946. He illustrated many books including Anacreon, translated by Abraham Cowley, 1923 and O. Henry, The Gift of the Magi, 1939. His work is held by the Whitworth Gallery, Manchester, as well as the British Museum.
The rider on the lion is a superb example of Gooden's highly finished line engraving technique and is one of his four largest independent plates. Gooden's meticulous handling inspired the famous print connoisseur and curator Campbell Dodgson to write: 'Rare in these days of haste and impatience in which the slow achievement of perfection in any branch of art is out of fashion, is the diligent craftsmanship which has produced (these) exquisite engravings'.
A major inspiration on Gooden would haven been Albrecht Dürer's famous engraving Large Fortune, c. 1501-2, which is also in Te Papa's collection (1952-0003-150). Both have female figures balancing on a sphere (though Gooden's heroine is considerably younger and cuter) and both depict dramatic aerial views of the landscape below; such is Gooden's tribute to Dürer that the church and landscape take on a distinctly Germanic appearance. The major point of difference is Gooden's delightful lion rampant; was this to say 'Dürer is a great German but I am English'? Certainly this was the thought of the poet G. Rostrevor Hamilton who published the poem 'The Trumpeter of St George' under the influence of the poem. (Perhaps Gooden's rider is just boyish enough to qualify as St George!) More significant is when the poem was published: 1941. The verses interpret this image as 'the mouthpiece of England at war'. Published by the Royal Society of St George, the poem was intended as a rallying cry to preserve and guard 'the England that we love'.
See:
British Museum, 'Stephen Gooden (Biographical details), http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_database/term_details.aspx?bioId=123220
Campbell Fine Art, 'Stephen F. Gooden', http://www.campbell-fine-art.com/items.php?id=104
Dr Mark Stocker Curator, Historical International Art April 2018