Charles Blackman has a penchant for storytelling. His most iconic work either pivots around a story (‘Alice in Wonderland’, for example) or operates like a story, using visual techniques to pique intrigue. 'Miss Muffett (sic) and her Spider’ is an example of both. Inspired by the eponymous nursery rhyme, this etching is strangely mysterious. It sees a girl sit on an open palm, her back to us, a red spiderweb yawning above her. 

At its most basic, the nursery rhyme ‘Miss Muffet and her Spider’ is about innocence and fear – themes endemic to Blackman’s work. He was consistently interested in troubling the boundary between naivety and threat, placing schoolgirls in sinister alleyways and pathos in the face of girlhood heroes. Little does this child know, but she sits in someone’s palm – her fate gingerly held beneath a spider’s eye.

Part of Blackman’s revered Nursery Rhyme Suite and printed with master printer Satish Sharma at Well House Press Studio, ‘Miss Muffet and her Spider’ is a collectable find. Elegant and intriguing, it will stay with you long after the rhyme ends.

Charles BLACKMAN (1928 - 2018)
'Miss Muffet and Her Spider' 1977
Etching on paper
Edition of 20
Image Size: 51 x 40 cm
Dimensions: 70 x 60 cm
Signed: Signed CHARLES BLACKMAN in margin and inscribed MISS MUFFETT AND HER SPIDER  1/20
 
Comes with Letter of Provenance
 
Condition: Very Good: very very minor ink residue on top margin; minor. Image itself in pristine condition. Very very minor foxing on right margin edge.
 
(c) Charles Blackman / Copyright Agency