John La Farge (1835-1910)

The present work is one from a series of John La Farge's illustrations for The Riverside Magazine for Young People. Unfortunately, this work was never published as the magazine went out of business. The subject, Will of Cloudeslie, is one of a fabled Medieval "trio of outlaws...as famous in the north of England as Robin Hood and his band were in the midlands, but belong[ing] to the generation of Robin Hood's father." (J.Y. Yarnell, unpublished letter, 2003) According to the catalogue raisonné notes compiled by Henry A. La Farge, "La Farge's source for the ballad of William of Cloudeslie, notable outlaw in the reign of Henry II, was probably the edition of Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (London, 1867)...illustrating the lines, "Cloudeslie bent a wel good bowe/That was of trusty tree."

An unfinished woodcut of this same subject is in the collection of the Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.