Original artwork for Cashmere Bouquet Soap: "The Letter".

One of the artist's illustrations for Colgate and Company's adverts for "Cashmere Bouquet Soap" and, presumably, published in American newspapers or periodicals in the early 1920s. The series helped alter the public's perception of Rackham's oeuvre. Hamilton, in his biography of the artist, states that "Rackham's largest single commission for the US was not for a book but for a series of soap advertisements. Colgate commissioned thirty drawings on the theme of the Early English Aristocracy to advertise Cashmere Bouquet Soap, which they billed as 'The Aristocrat of Toilet Soaps'. Spread over the years 1922-25, this commission. affected the particular tone of his reputation in America. From being the 'Goblin Master', Rackham was now being seen by the new audience of popular newspaper and magazine readers as the creator of Hollywood style, Jane Austenesque, crinolined fantasties". During the campaign Hamilton notes that "the original drawings were exhibited in art galleries throughout America, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The price Rackham paid, however, for spending an extended length of time on the Colgate project - for all its financial and publicity benefits - was that he was diverted from book illustration". The artist's instructions on the reverse read "Note: The limit for reproduction is marked by a pencil line. Mounts should be removed first. They are only for protection". James Hamilton, Arthur Rackham: a life with illustration, 1990, pp. 126-8. Original drawing (270 x 235 mm) on artist's board (272 x 241 mm), fine ink and watercolour, signed ("Arthur Rackham") lower right, titled "1. 'The Letter'", the artist's name and address, and reproduction instructions in the artist's hand on reverse, mounted, framed, and glazed (framed size 456 x 417 mm). Some minor toning below mount; else fine and unfaded.…