Jessie Willcox Smith (American, 1863–1935)Bob Cratchit and Tiny TimSigned 'JESSE WILCOX SMITH.' bottom left, oil on paper laid down to board27 1/2 x 19 1/4 in. (69.9 x 48.9cm)PROVENANCE:Private Collection, Pennsylvania.Acquired circa 1980.Sotheby's, New York, sale of December 1, 2004, lot 263.Acquired directly from the above sale.Private Collection, Colorado.LITERATURE:Jessie Willcox Smith, Dickens's Children, New York, 1912, illustrated on the cover.Samuel McChord Crothers, The Children of Dickens, New York, 1925, illustrated on the cover and again p. 119.NOTE:Jessie Wilcox Smith is known for her illustrations of children. Her love for them, which led her into teaching, was evident in her work. She worked for most of the leading magazines of the day including Good Housekeeping, Century, Collier's, Scribner's, and Woman's Home Companion. She was a prolific book illustrator and preferred to work with charcoal, watercolor and gouache, while supplementing her income with commissioned oil portraits of children. Through her pictures of children, whether illustrations for fairy tales, or of simple domestic scenes, Smith changed and enlarged the appreciation of children in American popular culture by her enormously sympathetic portrayals. The present work is an illustration for the book by Samual McChord Crothers, The Children of Dickens, originally published in 1925. Bob Cratchit first appeared in Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol as the victimized clerk of cold-hearted Ebenezer Scrooge. Timothy Cratchit, also known as Tiny Tim is Bob's youngest son, whose chronic disease forces him to walk with a crutch. His character is built as the antithesis of Scrooge's and serves as a representative of the impoverished, yet strong-hearted, lower class during the Victorian era. When visited by the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, Scrooge realizes that he must change his ways and pay Bob Cratchit more generously in order for Tim to survive, later becoming a second father to him.