The waiter dropped the knife upon his foot and leaped back acrobatically

© Artist's Estate or Publisher. Photograph and digital image © Delaware Art Museum. Not for rep…
© Artist's Estate or Publisher
The waiter dropped the knife upon his foot and leaped back acrobatically
© Artist's Estate or Publisher. Photograph and digital image © Delaware Art Museum. Not for reproduction or publication.

The waiter dropped the knife upon his foot and leaped back acrobatically

Date1931
Artist (American painter and illustrator, 1887–1964)
Illustration Citation"Danger Calling," by Patricia Wentworth, in Pictorial Review, May 1931.
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions32 3/4 × 22 5/8 in. (83.2 × 57.5 cm)
frame: 34 1/4 × 24 1/8 in. (87 × 61.3 cm)
Credit LineGift of Mrs. Douglas Duer, 1976
Object number1976-49
On View
Not on view
ClassificationsPAINTING
Label TextDouglas Duer composed this illustration—in two colors, doubtless because of the magazine's economizing on expensive color printing costs—with an eye toward the relationship of text and image. The white space would have been filled with the story's text. Pictorial Review was a women's magazine covering fashion, homemaking, and domestic issues. In 1937 it absorbed the famous women's magazine The Delineator and published until 1939.

Danger Calling is a story by British crime novelist Patricia Wentworth, featuring political machinations and international intrigue. Snakes play a prominent role in the melodrama.