Marie Angel

Angel is known as the illustrator of numerous books, including bestiaries, abecedaries, volumes of flower illustrations, and children's books. The present drawing was made for plate 12, "Elephant," of her book Beasts in Heraldry, published in 1974. The book does not reproduce actual coats of arms, but, as described in its introduction by J.P. Brooke-Little, proposes "a collection of charming, delicate, romantic pictures devised and designed in such a way as to relate the creatures of nature to those of heraldry." An elephant with a castle on its back is a common imagery in crests or emblems, as still visible in the logo of the Elephant & Castle pub chain.