LOBEL, Arnold.
Original Frog and Toad Drawing.
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+$500
Original Frog and Toad Drawing by Arnold Lobel
Original pen-and-ink drawing by Arnold Lobel of his beloved Frog and Toad, drawn for The Frog and Toad Coloring Book. The two friends stand side by side beneath a towering flower as the snail arrives at last, an envelope marked “TOAD” in its mouth. The drawing illustrates the final page of the coloring book, closing the story “The Letter” with the text, “Four days later the snail got to Toad’s house and gave him the letter from Frog. Toad was very pleased to have it.” Ink over graphite on paper, within a ruled pencil border. Numbered “32” in pencil in the lower margin, with the pencilled initials “S.S.” beside it. In near fine condition with scattered stains to the lower margin. The piece measures 14.625 inches by 11 inches.
Arnold Lobel (1933-1987) created two of the most cherished friends in children’s literature with Frog and Toad Are Friends (1970), a Caldecott Honor book published in Harper’s I Can Read series. Lobel recalled that the pair grew out of family summers in Vermont, when his children brought home the frogs and toads they had caught. Three more collections followed, Frog and Toad Together (1972), a Newbery Honor book, Frog and Toad All Year (1976), and Days with Frog and Toad (1979), each telling five short, gently funny and quietly poignant stories about the cheerful, steady Frog and the anxious, stubborn Toad. “The Letter,” the final story in the first book, has become one of the best loved of them all. Toad is sad because no one ever sends him mail, so Frog hurries home, writes him a letter, and entrusts it to a snail, and the two friends sit waiting together on Toad’s porch until it arrives four days later. For The Frog and Toad Coloring Book (1981), Lobel redrew and enlarged scenes from the series as clean outline drawings for children to color, ending the book with the snail’s long-awaited delivery. That same year he received the Caldecott Medal for Fables. Lobel wrote or illustrated nearly a hundred books before his death in 1987, and the Frog and Toad books remain in print around the world, translated into many languages.