French-born illustrator and designer Edmund Dulac was born in Toulouse in 1882. He began his studies at the University of Toulouse in the law, but switched to art full time after winning prizes at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. In 1904, Dulac moved to London and eventually became a naturalized British citizen.
Dulac was a talented illustrator, receiving commissions at a young age by a publisher to illustrate Jane Eyre and nine other works by the Bronte sisters. Through social connections, Dulac began an association with several prominent London galleries who sold his work in annual exhibitions. In his early career, Dulac did the illustrations for The Arabian Nights (1907), The Tempest (1908), Sleeping Beauty (1910) and Stories from Hans Christian Andersen (1911). During WWI, Dulac contributed to relief books and wrote for several publications including Pall Mall magazine and The American Weekly.
In 1937, Dulac was asked to design a postage stamp for Great Britain to commemorate the coronation of King George VI. The image of the head of the King used on all the stamps issued during his reign was Dulac’s design, as well as a stamp issued to commemorate the 1948 Summer Olympics and the Festival of Britain.
During WWII, Dulac designed stamps and banknotes for Free France/France Libre. France Libre was the government-in-exile set up by Charles de Gaulle in London in 1940 after the fall of France to the Germans. De Gaulle’s France Libre supported the Resistance in occupied France and steadily worked to take over Vichy possessions from colonial outposts in Africa, India and the Pacific. By 1944, the France Libre army numbered more than 400,000 troops and participated in the Normandy landings. By the end of the war, their numbers were over a million strong and they advanced through France with the Allies to invade Germany. The France Libre government re-established a provisional republic in France after the Liberation, preparing the groundwork for the Fourth Republic in 1946.
Dulac designed stamps for several French colonies during WWII, including Madagascar. We are very pleased to be offering for sale the original drawing for this stamp, Lot 158, in our March 14-15th sale of English, Continental and American Paintings, Furniture, Porcelain, Silver, Glass and Carpets.
This drawing was used as the template for a definitive issue, or series, in a range of denominations.
Also included in this sale is a design for a France Libre stamp for the island of Reunion, east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean, Lot 158. We are not certain that Dulac was the artist for this stamp as well.
Dulac also designed banknotes for French Equatorial Africa in 1944 that were issued by the Caisse Centrale de la France d’Outre-Mer. Dulac used the wife of a friend as his model for the image of Marianne on the banknotes, and also on a series of stamps known as the Marianne de Londres series. Marianne is the allegorical symbol of the French Republic, representing liberty and reason, her image symbolizing the Triumph of the Republic.