Great Expectations - Pip meets Magwitch (Original)

Great Expectations - Pip meets Magwitch art by Ron Embleton

Great Expectations - Pip meets Magwitch (Original)


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Artist: Ron Embleton
Medium: Pencil on Paper
Size: 11" x 16" (270mm x 400mm)
Code: RE0532

This is the unique original Pencil drawing by Ron Embleton.

The novel begins with young Pip visiting the graves of his parents and brothers, where he is surprised by Magwitch: "[a] fearful man, all in coarse gray, with a great iron on his leg. A man with no hat, and with broken shoes, and with an old rag tied round his head. A man who had been soaked in water, and smothered in mud, and lamed by stones, and cut by flints, and stung by nettles, and torn by briars; who limped and shivered, and glared and growled; and whose teeth chattered in his head as he seized me by the chin."

Magwitch tricks the seven-year-old boy into believing that he has an accomplice who is a terrible young man who would tear out and eat Pip's heart and liver if Pip did not help them. Magwitch demands Pip to get him wittles (food) and a file. Pip, terrified, steals a pork pie, brandy and a file from his house and brings them to Magwitch the next morning.

On his way he encounters another convict, bruised in the face, who he initially thought was Magwitch and then believes to be the young man Magwitch had told him about. Magwitch, upon hearing about the other escapee, realises that Compeyson has also escaped and, after having eaten, drunk, and filed his leg iron off, he sets off to search for him. He finds him and decides, not caring for his own fate, to take him back to the Hulks. The pair are still struggling when soldiers find and seize them.

Charles Dickens set his story in about 1800, setting his character Abel Magwitch to meet a man called Compeyson at the Epsom Races. Compeyson, Dickens wrote, had been brought up in a boarding school and was an attractive, charming gentleman. Magwitch, at the same time, began a relationship with a mentally unstable woman named Molly, who later stood trial for murder. Jaggers, her defense attorney, convinced the jury that she was too weak to have strangled the woman. Molly was acquitted and became (unknown to Magwitch) Jaggers' maidservant. The story relates that Molly had given birth to Magwitch's daughter, who was about two or three years old at the time of Molly's trial. Molly told Magwitch that she had killed the child, and as far as Magwitch knew, his daughter had indeed died.

Later in the novel Magwitch and Compeyson are accused of putting stolen notes in circulation. Compeyson convinces Magwitch that they should have separate defences and no communication. At the trial, Compeyson appeared as a gentleman, while Magwitch had to sell his clothes to be able to pay for Jaggers. The prosecution placed most of the guilt on Magwitch, who realized that Compeyson had always intended to scapegoat him should they be caught.

In the end, Magwitch is condemned to fourteen years' imprisonment, while Compeyson receives seven. Magwitch and Compeyson are imprisoned on the same prison ship. Magwitch attempts to kill Compeyson. He is taken to the black hole (a solitary confinement cell) after landing his first punch, but he manages to escape some time around Christmas of 1812. Professionally matted ready for framing.
  • Artist Biography
    Ronald Sydney Embleton (6 October 1930 - 13 February 1988; Limehouse, London, UK)
    Born in Limehouse, London in 1930, Embleton began drawing as a young boy, submitting a cartoon to the News of the World at the age of 9 and, at 12, winning a national poster competition.

    In 1946 Embleton went to the South-East Essex Technical College and School of Art. There he had the incredible good fortune to be taught by David Bomberg, one of the greatest ? though at that time sadly under-appreciated ? British artists of the twentieth century.

    At age 17 he earned himself a place in a commercial studio but soon left to work freelance, drawing comic strips for many of the small publishers who sprang up shortly after the war.

    He was soon drawing for the major publishers. His most fondly remembered strips include Strongbow the Mighty in Mickey Mouse Weekly, Wulf the Briton in Express Weekly, Wrath of the Gods in Boys' World, Tales of the Trigan Empire and Johnny Frog in Eagle and Stingray in TV Century 21.

    Embleton also provided the illustrations that appeared in the title credits for the Captain Scarlet TV series, and dozens of paintings for prints and newspaper strips. A meticulous artist, his illustrations appeared in Look and Learn for many years, amongst them the historical series Roger?s Rangers.

    Oh, Wicked Wanda! was a British full-colour satirical and saucy adult comic strip, written by Frederic Mullally and drawn by Ron Embleton. The strip regularly appeared in Penthouse magazine from 1973 to 1980 and was followed by Embleton's equally saucy dark humoured Merry Widow strip, written by Penthouse founder Bob Guccione.

    Less well known, however, was his equally energetic career as an oil painter. In fact, being a painter had been his life's ambition ? his 'driving force', according to his daughter Gillian. It was only his remarkable success as an illustrator that in the end largely diverted him from the painter's path.

    Embleton died on 13 February 1988 at the relatively young age of 57 after a lifetime of truly prodigious artistic output of remarkable quality.

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