Jessie Willcox Smith cover illustration for "Collier's Weekly" (1905): rare, beautifully framed antique

After completing her studies at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in1888, Smith joined the advertising staff of Philadelphia-based Ladies Home Journal. She was making her way as an artist, but it seems she was not satisfied with her career. Therefore, in 1894, when Howard Pyle opened his illustration class at the Drexel Institute, JWS enrolled as a student. She would later credit Pyle with sweeping away "all the cobwebs and confusions that so beset the path of the art-student." Virtually all JWS’s early works were pen and inks shaded with washes. Most were probably reproduced photographically with steadily improving the halftone process. In 1905, color separation technology was good enough for JWS to add color to the illustrations she was creating for Charles Scribner’s Sons new edition of Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verses. This book marks the beginning of JWS’s fame as a child illustrator. It also marks the beginning of "the age of color" for illustrated books. In view of these remarkable achievements, it may not be surprising that JWS chose one of her illustrations for A Child’s Garden of Verses to adorn the cover of Collier's 25 March 1905 issue.