Excellent vintage Victorian design, Raleigh Nottingham mirror, British collectibles advertising piece.
A beautiful vintage mirror features a gentleman Pierrot with his mandolin, a glamour lady in art deco attire on her Victorian bike. It has a vibrant and colourful design, with branding on the top and great wording of the factory address.
British-based design from Nottingham, a fantastic vivid item of wall art with a nice mid to dark-coloured frame.
Comes in good vintage condition with minor signs of original patina.
Height: 34cm
Length: 24cm
Width: 2cm
Tom Browne RI, born Thomas Arthur Browne (8 December 1870 – 16 May 1910), was an extremely popular English strip cartoonist, painter and illustrator of the late Victorian and Edwardian periods. He often signed his work as Tom B.
In 1890, Alfred Harmsworth founded a new British comic book called Comic Cuts. It was cheaply printed and proved to be the ideal medium for Browne's bold drawing style.
In 1898, Browne became a member of the Royal British Society of Artists and, in 1901, was elected to the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours, which allowed him to use the letters RI after his name.
Browne was a founding member of the London Sketch Club, which was formed in 1898, and was publicly acclaimed. The stimulating experience of these regular get-togethers, along with those of other founding members, including Dudley Hardy and Phil May, was seminal in its influence on British commercial art.
His cycling trips took him worldwide, while illustrations of these exploits appeared in the newspapers. Returning to Nottingham, he started a colour printing firm and joined the Territorial Army.
The logo of Johnnie Walker whiskey, the strutting, monocled character, was created by Browne in 1908. He also made the comic strip Weary Willie and Tired Tim, inspired by Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.
Browne played a significant part in the evolution of the British comic style, influencing Bruce Bairnsfather, Dudley Watkins and Leo Baxendale.
In an article published in 1903, Browne said “I do alleged humorous drawings… I have done some thousands of them, probably, yet normally I am a sober, almost melancholy, individual, and I started out in life with the ambition to paint big devotional pictures.”