Around the same as Rockwell Kent and James G. Blaine Ewing produced The Blue Mouse, Kent provided some illustrations for The White Elephant, a family log of the Charles Ewing family. Blaine Ewing was Charles Ewing’s brother. The White Elephant is an illustrated autograph manuscript and has remained in the Ewing family’s possession to this date (October 2022). The Blue Mouse was a gentle spoof of the Ewing family log.

While The Blue Mouse never had a signed color illustration in his name, we do know of at least one early Kent cover drawing from The White Elephant. The drawing from the March 6th, 1901, edition shows Kent signing with a reversed RK, a popular style in the early 1900s. Technically, this White Elephant cover drawing extends Kent’s art career by two years.

Together, the family logs foreshadow Kent’s development of his “light style” in drawing which found its peak in the illustrations he did for the Random House edition of Voltaire’s Candide, 1928.

The cover drawing appears below, along with four other Kent images from The White Elephant (dates unknown). These are fascinating and important early Kentiana examples. It is interesting to note that all of the images are signed slightly differently, perhaps indicating Kent’s experimentation with his signing style.

 Images From The White Elephant family log (1901-1916) of the Charles Ewings, loaned to Eliot Stanley, 1993-94, for exhibit at The Grolier Club, NYC, 1994. Rockwell Kent, a friend of the Ewing family, contributed some signed artwork to The White Elephant, as shown here. Thanks to Eliot for providing us these images.