Dean Cornwell

Jack Faragasso, New York

Private Collection, Los Angeles

Hammer Galleries, New York

Owen Gallery, New York

Acquired from the above in October 1996 by the present owner

Washington, D.C., Federal Reserve Board, Art of the Illustrator: Works from the Kelly Collection, 1997, no. 10, p. 16

Roanoke, Art Museum of Western Virginia, Art of the Illustrator, 1850-1950, 1998-99

New York, The Dahesh Museum of Art, Stories to Tell: Masterworks from the Kelly Collection of American Illustration, 2006

Malibu, Pepperdine University, The Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art, Illustrating Modern Life: The Golden Age of American Illustration from the Kelly Collection, 2013

Cynthia Stockley, "The Garden of Peril," Cosmopolitan, April 1923, pp. 26-27, illustrated

The present work was published as an illustration for Cynthia Stockley’s story The Garden of Peril in the April 1923 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine, which eventually became a full-length novel published by G.P. Putnam's Sons in 1924. Stockley’s story follows the South African colonial life of Peril Kelly, an orphan girl living with her uncle, Dr. Bruce Kelly, in the British colony of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Secluded in her uncle’s lush garden, Peril’s tranquil existence is disrupted by the arrival of the troubled Heseltine family—Pam, a dying man seeking treatment; his vain and beautiful wife, Doria; and their charismatic cousin, Punch.  Captioned “A hurricane of sensation and emotion began presently to sweep and pierce him and then Punch felt a cooling peace, winging out of space and nesting in the fastness of his heart,” the present scene depicts the moment after Punch finds Peril in a moment of sorrow and tries to comfort her, resulting in a moment of romantic tension amid the garden's radiant greenery.