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A couple months back I met up with fellow Searle fan Pete Western for a visit to the Prints & Drawings dept. at the British Museum in London. They hold all the original drawings for Searle's
'The Rakes Progress'. There are several boxes of drawings & we only had time to look through a couple. The museum allowed us to photograph the drawings for personal use only as the copyright resides with the artist. Mr Searle granted me permission to publish the photos so I hope the British Museum is OK with this post.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYpwdXIGfM5X0LKMMVfMdTqbF_Z3QptHWw5e7OrWDHPb09duaxbInkl6FCvu91kXH7h1JD2R9SIcywi0wCuwCSAl7Z8lbgBH61W82T4xxYUxhkF47tAbdUQymZZIaaIL-i-lZP/s400/TheCover.jpg)
It was enlightening to see the original artwork. The printed pages tend to lose a lot of the nuance of Searle's drawings. But in the photographs you can see the various media & techniques he used.
Here's a scan of a page from the printed book.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeiWoG8Maew-PB_l_LNg9pzBO9Rv0y_JCiP1qMDZ1tb0Ju5KbhMCzeBIxkHDchwjlM9l2CVSby4g5Yp5gVMCX2-VwUP8jDeObZeoIv0paBuVKHAruYQZPfIemhNgIkxLf_auQ5/s400/Rake3.jpg)
Click on the image to see the enlarged detail.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTIt7eVpX7hC2w3kTj9alUXCFP6sv5B01rP0V52QbbGE-5G46oyHv6VlJr-M1MW_-zw0-o3UVSbM2vK6Ye_JVRAFHgMFd_KEmQjB_pxxfeljj02Era8R_0-CHOJV7K9ArNtumn/s400/Rake1.jpg)
I was surprised to see that this one was drawn without ink at all but in crayon.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4RQ1b_6-bhjatqoI0_81NEMqgtRLGZGyfSxtGO4APXx3Y04t9JozDHH0akjQJUl_v224FGDlsj3RmdWwz9qj-J5GXQ5zh_CUwd7bRl93zrB4ckIECa65OwcUGjFnioPhmFScA/s400/TheGirlfriend.jpg)
Thanks to Pete for the excellent photographs. More to come soon . . .
Part 1 of
'The Rake's Progress' here.