Watercolour over pen and ink, 32 by 23 cm

Provenance: the artist's estate; Campbell Wilson Fine Art

Edith Templeton's novel This Charming Pastime was published by Eyre and Spottiswoode in 1955. Baynes was a regular designer for the publisher, this fine early jacket design showing the influence of John Minton on the young artist.

Anthony Baynes studied at the Slade School of Art where his 1946 painting The Betrayal (now in the collection of the UCL Art Museum) won the Mary Richgitz Prize. An accomplished designer of both murals, theatrical sets (briefly for Sadler's Wells in the 1940s) and decorated furniture, Baynes was a notable designer of dust jackets from the 1950s to the 1970s, working for publishers including John Murray, Capes and Eyre and Spottiswoode.