ORIGINAL DRAWING EXERCISE BOOK, belonging to the 10 year old Maria Adelaide Mairis (1829-1853).

Small oblong folio [24 x 18 cm], 12 leaves with pencil drawing, one with a sepia wash; original marbled wrappers with a trade label on the upper cover [see below].


Maria Adelaide Mairis would have been ten years old when she started her drawing book in 1839 and appears to have used one of Samuel Prout's copy books as her model. Maria has also copied in several subjects twice as she perfected her young ladies 'accomplishment'. Her exercises included trees, cottages, wells, and rustic still life to practice her art - nothing too difficult and so probably something that was pencilled at the beginning of her lessons.

Maria was the daughter of Valentine Hale Mairis of Bishop's Lavington in Wiltshire who was an army captain on half pay and thus unattached to any regiment at the time the drawing book was purchased. He had married into a local family and much of Mairis' income came from property he and his family owned in Lavington. It would appear the family, including several brothers and a sister of Maria, were living in the select area of Clifton outside of Bristol in the late 1830's, so the drawing book may have been connected with her schooling in the area.

The drawing book has a rather attractive, and unrecorded trade label, for the supplier Reeves & Son, 150 Cheapside, London on the upper cover. This was designed by the painter and draughtsman George Shepherd (1785-1862) and engraved by J. Barker it shows all the accoutrements needed to make a good delineator including a drawing book, pencils, brushes, palette, mixing bowl and of course a watercolour box.