Rum and Bibles

Etching, image size 7 3/4 x 11 1/4 inches, 1931, pencil signed l.r. "George C. Wales", plate inscribed l.l. "Rum and Bibles for the West Coast of Africa G.C.W. 1931". Wales was born in Boston in 1868. He studied architecture at MIT and after graduation worked at a prominent firm in the Boston area eventually opening his own. It was only when he was nearing fifty that he became interested in the art of etching. His first exhibit was in 1921, by 1923 he had "mastered" the lithography process and in 1927 Wales published a book on etchings of American ships.