Estella Canziani- The piper of dreams

An elf-like child, leaning against a tree in a springtime forest glade, plays a pipe. It’s an image created by Italian/British artist and illustrator Estella Canziani in 1914. Two years later it sold 250,000 copies. “As all hell rained down upon the fields of Flanders and the Somme, it would seem that every muddy trench had a copy of the painting pinned to its walls – a talisman of a better world.” AVAILABLE and on offer Estella’s Canziani’s – The piper of dreams PRINT , in a 30 x 36 cm Frame. Vintage in age, property of a Gentleman who served in the war. The Piper of Dreams is an image that became immensely popular amongst troops and their families. This did not go into the frame yesterday, (we can convey the house and interesting family history attached to it. Estella Canziani (1887-1964) was born in London, the daughter of painter Louisa Starr, who herself produced some ‘fantasy’ paintings, such as ‘A Fairy Tale’ in 1869 and ‘Undine’ the next year. Canziani lived her whole life in the same house, but she travelled extensively and published three travel books based on these trips. She was a painter, worked as a book illustrator and wrote articles in Folklore, the journal of the Folklore Society. Canziani had started to paint The Piper of Dreams at Easter 1914, demonstrating that there was no thought on her part to produce an image that might cheer ‘our boys’ in the trenches with thoughts of home. Instead, it is a clear testament to the fact that she had inherited her mother’s interest in fantasy scenes. The picture’s original title was ‘Where the little things of the wood live unseen,’ nowhere near as emotive as the label it bore at the Royal Academy exhibition the next summer. The canvas sold the day the exhibition opened and hundreds of thousands of copies of the picture were sold over the next few years and posted to troops across the world! FRAME SIZE: a 30 x 36 cm (Note wear etc to frame, vintage in age) NATIONWIDE DELIVERY AVAILABLE Kind Regards