The Shipman's Tale (boxwood, ebonised with printer's ink, gessoed & painted)

This remarkable sculpture is the original woodblock that Gill cut to print his illustration to The Shipman's Tale in the Golden Cockerel Press edition of The Canterbury Tales, 1929-31. After it was used for this purpose, Gill filled the cut away areas with gesso paste mixed with mother-of-pearl dust to give it a slight twinkle, and delicately painted details with bronze paint. He then mounted it on a plinth and gave it to the woman he used as a model for the merchant's wife in the bed, Cicely Marchant, who ran the Goupil Gallery in London, with her husband William, Gill's dealers. Gill himself was the randy monk. The opening lines of the Shipman's Tale are: A marchant whilom dwelled at Seint-Denys, That riche was, for which men helde hym wys. A wyf he hadde of excellent beautee; And compaignable and revelous was she, This is a pun, typical of Gill's humour, on 'marchant', Middle English for 'merchant'. The story of the Tale is that the merchant's wife had expensive habits (she liked to party) and asked the monk for money to pay her debts so that her husband won't discover her. The monk borrowed the money from her husband to give to her, the bargain being that she sleep with him: That for thise hundred frankes he sholde al nyght Have hire in his armes bolt upright;