Mary Harriet Robinson

On parchment with burnished gold illumination, the title page signed in pencil: Mary H. Robinson, further inscribed in another hand Illumination by Mary Heath Robinson/sister of WHR, the artist’s name label attached to inside back cover, bound in marbled boards with green leather and gilt tooling stamped CHERRY RIPE

24 x 33 cm.; 9 ½ x 13 inches

Provenance
Mr and Mrs T.L. Robinson (lent to an unidentified exhibition as no. 211);

By family descent until 2024

The famous song Cherry Ripe was written by Robert Herrick (1591-1674) and the music is by Charles E. Horn (1786-1849).

Mary Robinson, the sister of William Heath Robinson, was a talented calligrapher and illustrator and occasional metal sculptor. She was taught by Charles Edward Johnson (1832-1913), a member of the Royal Society of Painter in Watercolours, as was her brother Charles Robinson. She became a member of the Royal Society of Scribes and Illustrators in 1921.

Her brother William praises her skill in his autobiography, My Line of Life, 1938:
’My sister has, I believe, found a great consolation in the work that now occupies her all her lifetime. Her writing and illumination are sometimes exquisite’, pp. 164-65. Mary devoted some of her life to nursing her mother and sister.