Where there's smoke there's fire – Antique Wall Art
![Where there's smoke there's fire, [192-?] — historic drawing](https://images.jameslantos.com/img/c9/c911a3686e83-L.webp)
(Originally scanned by the Library of Congress. Each image is professionally and digitally cleaned of artifacts such as color bars and extra borders prior to printing.)
Description
A window into the past: Where there's smoke there's fire, preserved in this historic drawing. The original is held by the Library of Congress, so what you hang is a true record of its time.
Choose the framed print, ready to hang the day it arrives, or the unframed print for a frame of your own. A conversation-starting piece for home, office, or as a meaningful gift. Free shipping in the lower 48 states. Snapshots of the Past, founded in 2001, has served tens of thousands of customers worldwide.
Where there's smoke there's fire
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Russell Patterson's drawing takes its title from an old saying, and its subject tags point to a flapper with a cigarette, a figure who by the 1920s had come to stand for new freedoms in dress and manners. Patterson, whose signature appears in the lower left corner, was a prominent illustrator of the decade, and his stylized women appeared often in magazines. Executed in India ink, red and brown inks, and watercolor on illustration board, the piece was made for periodical reproduction, so its bold lines were built to print cleanly. Women smoking in public was still a provocative image then, and pictures like this helped carry the flapper's challenge to older conventions into everyday print.
| Created / published | [192-?] |
|---|---|
| Medium | 1 drawing : India, red and brown inks, with watercolor on illustration board ; 45.1 x 59.2 cm. (sheet) |
| Genre | Drawings American Color 1920-1930.Periodical illustrations American 1920-1930. |
| Notes | Inscribed in pencil on verso: No cut made. No copyright information found with item. Signed, lower left: Russell / Patterson. Title inscribed in blue pencil on verso. Bequest and gift; Caroline and Erwin Swann; 1977; (DLC/PP-1977:215.41) Exhibited: American beauties: drawings from the golden age of illustration, Swann Gallery, Library of Congress, 2002. |
| Subjects | Flappers--1920-1930. Smoking--1920-1930. Women--1920-1930. |
| Source | Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division |
| Original scan | 1,457 × 1,155 px · prints to 5 × 4 in at 300 dpi |
| Reference | AMZ-SOTP-HPA-219404 |
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