• Skip navigation and go to content
  • Go to navigation

Norman Rockwell Museum

  • Visit
    • Hours & Admission
    • Directions
    • Exhibitions
  • Learn
    • Programs
    • School Programs
    • Curriculum Lab
  • Research
    • Norman Rockwell Collection
    • Archives and Library
    • Rockwell Center for Americal Visual Studies
    • IllustrationHistory.org
    • Frank Schoonover Collection Raisonné
  • Donate
    • Make a Gift
    • Become a Member
  • Shop
  • Calendar
  • Contact
    • Staff Directory
    • Norman Rockwell Museum e-newsletter sign-up
    • Careers
    • What's my Rockwell Worth?
      FAQ

Illustration History

  • History
  • Artists
  • Genres
  • Essays
  • Resources
  • Podcast
  • History
    • Time Periods
  • Artists
  • Genres
  • Essays
  • Resources
  • Podcast
Home > Illustrations > "Shove that under your feet," he observed to the Mole, as he passed it down into the boat

“Shove that under your feet,” he observed to the Mole, as he passed it down into the boat

By Arthur Rackham | Created: 1939

 “Shove that under your feet,” he observed to the Mole, as he passed it down into the boat

"That Rackham's last subject in book-illustration should have been one in which he took especial pleasure...demonstrates a kind of poetic justice not commonly found."

Publication
  • The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
Publication Date
  • 1940
Medium
  • Watercolor
Support
  • Paper
Illustration Size
  • 9.6 x 7.5 inches

©Public Domain

In the summer of 1936, American publisher George Macy of the Limited Editions Club visited Rackham to commission him to illustrate a new book. Though originally there to inquire about The Crock of Gold, Rackham offered to illustrate an additional story for him. Macy suggested The Wind in the Willows, a work with sentimental value to Rackham since he had turned down the opportunity to illustrate it thirty years earlier when he was busy with illustrations for A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1908). He told Macy that he had regretted that decision ever since and that he welcomed the opportunity to illustrate it now. When Rackham turned down Kenneth Grahame and his publishers decades before, the book had been published without illustrations and remained so until 1931.

One of sixteen color plates created for The Wind in the Willows, this drawing was Rackham’s last illustration completed before he died. This piece shows Rat carrying a heavy picnic basket to load into the boat. “Rackham’s daughter remembers his great exhaustion and the extreme difficulty he had in getting it done. When he had, as he thought, he suddenly discovered there were no oars in the boat. Barbara tried to persuade him that this was a detail that did not matter, but he insisted that everything must be right, and with great labour he altered the drawing and put in the oars. After he had done this, he lay back in bed and said: ‘Thank goodness, that is the last one.’ And so it proved in every sense.” 1

1. Derek Hudson, Arthur Rackham: His Life and Work (London: Heinemann, 1960), 149.

Genres
  • Books
  • Interior Illustration
  • Courtroom Drawings
Global Perspectives
  • North America
  • Europe
Related Time Periods
  • The Decade 1930-1940 The Decade 1930-1940

Support the Project

We need your help to keep this project alive and growing. How can you help?

Submit Work
Make A Donation
About The Project

Stay Informed

Join our mailing list to receive updates about this growing project.

Art Works. National Endowment for the Arts. arts.gov

This project is supported in part by an award
from the National Endowment for the Arts.

"The great band of illustrators have shown us to ourselves and I am proud to be among their company."
- Norman Rockwell

©Copyright 2020 Norman Rockwell Museum
9 Route 183, Stockbridge, MA 01262 | 413.298.4100
Privacy Policy | Terms and Conditions