Date: 1911

Medium: Watercolor and gouache on paper

Dimensions: sheet: 11 1/2 × 9 in. (29.2 × 22.9 cm)

Illustration Citation: Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson (Philadelphia: G.W. Jacobs, 1911)

Credit Line: Gift of Frank Schoonover, 1950

Object Number: 1950-10

About: Born in Maine,Elenore Plaisted Abbott was trained at the Philadelphia School of Design for Women, at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and in Paris, where her work was exhibited at the Academie des Beaux Arts. Upon her return in 1899 she studied with Howard Pyle. Abbott's treatment of the natural environment surrounding Jim Hawkins of Treasure Island is decorative rather realistic; she is more concernd with shapes and patterns than with an illusion of spatial depth. The scene is rather like a painted backdrop, and calls to mind that Abbott was a scenic designer as well as an illustrator and painter.