GIBRAN KAHLIL: (1883-1931) Lebanese-American Artist & Poet.

A charming original pencil drawing, heightened in watercolour, signed ('KG') by Gibran with his initials at the foot, on the verso of a folded 4to sheet (effectively therefore 8vo), the recto of which bears the printed heading of The Imported Grocery Co., of Gloucester, Massachusetts, n.p., n.d. Gibran's attractive drawing depicts a female nude standing in a three quarter length pose, her arms raised above her head as she holds an infant child on her right shoulder. Two further pencil studies appear in the margins, one of the lower part of an arm and the other showing the outline of a small child. Accompanied by an A.L.S., Barbara Young, by Henrietta Breckenridge Boughton (1878-1961, Gibran's secretary and companion from 1925 until his death), one page, 8vo, New York City, 26th April n.y. (1931), to Mr. Isham, on the printed stationery of the Grand Hotel. Young states 'You have been many times in my thoughts since the hour you spent with the great pictures in the Studio' and continues 'All that is now over. We are sailing May 4th….for England, then the continent and eventually Syria. The pictures will go almost intact to Beshari', adding that some will remain in the Metropolitan Museum in New York. Young further adds 'I am sending you a sketch which Gibran once sent me in a letter - and was therefore….by his own hand. This is my recognition of your beautiful understanding of his work.' A large, neat tear runs diagonally across the upper third of Gibran's drawing and has been repaired to the verso. Young's letter with some extensive, neat splitting to the folds, partially repaired to the verso, and with a few small tears and signs of age wear to the edges, G, 2Gibran had died in New York City on 10th April 1931 at the age of 48, just over two weeks prior to Young's letter transmitting Gibran's original drawing. In the present letter Young makes a reference to Bsharri ('Beshari'), the birthplace and final resting place of Gibran, and the location of The Gibran Museum.Kahlil Gibran is regarded as a literary and political rebel, most famous for his 1923 work The Prophet, an early example of inspirational fiction which was especially popular during the counterculture period of the 1960s. Gibran's romantic style was at the heart of a renaissance in modern Arabic literature. In Lebanon he is still celebrated as a literary hero and is the third best-selling poet of all time, behind Shakespeare and Laozi.