Portrait of Mrs Heseltine, from the portfolio Twenty-one etchings by Charles S. Keene

Keene was a draughtsman and illustrator who worked somewhat in the shadow of Whistler, whom he greatly admired. There is an air of informality and directness to Keene’s drawings that give them a sense of immediacy and vivacity. His ‘black and white’ work was widely reproduced in the popular illustrated journals that were such a feature of late 19th-century print culture. Keene’s many wood-engraved illustrations for Punch were highly esteemed by Degas, Pissarro and Adolph Menzel. The painter Walter Sickert also cites Keene often in his book, A free house! Or, the artist as craftsman (1947) in which he describes Keene’s drawings as having an authenticity because the artist draws from life as a direct observer and avoids the usual clichés that were common in his day.

Keene made about 30 etchings during his career, mainly for his own amusement in spare moments. His etchings are all undated and none have titles. They were made roughly between 1855 and 1870. The portfolio consists of 21 individually mounted prints depicting various figurative and landscape subjects, including character studies, people dressed in historical costume or engaged in domestic activities, as well as views of buildings, interiors, and scenes on canals and coasts. The portfolio includes titlepage, introduction and notes on the etchings in four separate fascicles. These are held in a blue paper wrappers. The set was printed by Frederick Goulding and published by The Astolat Press, London, in 1903 in an edition of 150. The first ten were printed on vellum; the remaining 140 were printed on Japan paper.