The latest Douglas Stewart Fine Books, Melbourne, list is offering for $1300 six original handmade designs , two relating to the Anzacs , for patriotic and propaganda charity stamps produced by French publisher Delandre during World War l.The above one ,circa l916, has an inscription in French on the back saying it is the Bust of War, by M.Bertram MacKennal,offered in memory of the Anzacs.
A note supplied by the bookshop says MacKennal offered the bust entitled War or Bellona Goddess of War to the Australian government in l916. Although the government accepted the gift it was five years before the artist received a thank you letter .
During that time the bust languished in a Melbourne cellar. It went on public the first time on Anzac Day 1921, on the steps of Parliament House, Melbourne , relocated to Canberra in 1926,where it was displayed outside Albert Hall on Canberra Avenue . It is now in the Australian War Memorial Sculpture Garden .
MacKennal, who knocked about with Rodin in England , won the competition for the relief carvings for the Victorian State Houses of Parliament and was later knighted .
The second Delandre item is a photomontage with gouache shadowing and lettering..
The patriotic stamps sold like hot cakes and the Red Cross asked Delandre to produce similar ones to raise funds, but he failed to hand over the proceeds and was arrested in 1917.By l925 he was on the run over fraud involving silver foxes !!!
Under the bogus name Baron Edmond Picarat (no kidding ) he started another fraud involving a leprosy charity.On the verge of arrest, he committed suicide on March 10, l927.
