The cartoon was published in Punch magazine on May 7, 1947. It shows the former prime minister in his studio with a canvas in the behind him showing current leader Clement Atlee in an upside-down industrial cityscape flanked by his foreign secretary Ernest Bevin and chancellor Hugh Dalton.
But what is Atlee doing with his left hand? The Bedford Square dealership is offering a small reward to anyone who can suggest a plausible answer.
Drawn by EH Shepard the pen and ink drawing is captioned ‘Leonardo da Whinny’ and came out the same week that the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition opened with one of Churchill’s paintings, Winter Sunshine, Chartwell, on show. It was exhibited under the pseudonym ‘David Winter’.
Maggs Bros is offering the piece framed and glazed for £12,500.
The World Crisis
Maggs is also offering a complete set of first editions of Churchill’s multi-volume work The World Crisis. The books were gifted to Maurice Hankey, the most senior civil servant in Churchill’s war administration.
“He knew everything; he could put his hand on anything; he knew everybody; he said nothing; he gained the confidence of all,” Churchill wrote of him.
The set is comprised of eight volumes covering 1911-31 and the books are offered in their original blue cloth, lettered in blind on front covers and in gilt on spines.
Volume 4 is inscribed: My dear Hankey, Although you have been good enough to read the bulk of this book before, I hope you will not mind my sending you a copy to put in yr library. Yours sincly Winston S. Churchill.
The set is offered for £50,000.
