Ancient Welsh bard

Randolph Caldecott (1846 – 86) was an illustrator and artist best known for his children’s picture books. The album this piece is from contains 40 pen and ink sketches and a single lithograph, beginning with Caldecott's early career in about 1867 at the M&S Bank in Manchester, up to the success of 'Old Christmas' and his first oil painting shown at the Royal Academy in 1875. Some of the sketches are on notepaper or envelopes, and others are cut from letters. The volume originally belonged to William Clough, who was an official at the bank, but continued correspondence with Caldecott into his career as an illustrator.

The volume also contains one lithograph (E.3696-1927) of a boy looking at three horses, 'drawn in Oxford Road opposite the end of High St., to illustrate a paper against the Bearing rein'.