Signed l.r.: John Minton with extensive inscriptions verso

Pen and black ink, 19 by 27.5 cm

Provenance: the artist to his friend Tom Robb

In 1948 John Minton collaborated with the writer Alan Ross on a travel book on Corsica, described by the Minton scholar Martin Salisbury as “One of the most significant illustrated books of the twentieth century, this was the result of John Lehmann's liberated approach to commissioning. He was keen to publish a travel book and did so simply by pairing Ross and Minton and sending writer and illustrator to Corsica with instructions along the lines of 'come back with a book". This drawing is an illustration for this book which John Lehmann published under the title Time was Away - A Notebook in Corsica. It remains amongst the most sought-after and widely admired of Minton's illustrated works.