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SAVOYV5_icon9_dearmer_dryad

The line-block reproduction of Dearmer’s pen-and-ink drawing is portrait orientation. The image shows a female figure or Dryad in profile, leaning back against an oak tree; together, the tree and woman take up the central area of the composition. The bottom third of the page is white in colour, and the top two-thirds is black. The white bottom third shows the underground tree roots. The Dryad’s feet start at the bottom of the black section on the left edge of the page and her legs angle diagonally up and to the right. Her torso and upper body are positioned vertically and leaned against the tree trunk. Her body is turned slightly towards the viewer. She is naked except for a thin transparent piece of material wrapped around her lower body from the waist down to the ankles. She has her chin tilted up and her eyes are closed. She has long branch-like hair and a tree branch is wrapped around her waist. The tree is made of many long and curvy vertical lines. There are white branches emerging from behind the woman’s legs out of the tree trunk and wrapping up and around the trunk until they split out to the left and right of the tree at the top of the frame. The branches have white oak leaves growing from them. There is a thin vine wrapping up the tree which starts from the right side, opposite the woman. The vine has ivy leaves growing on it. The roots growing beneath the ground level extend straight down from the middle and then jut off diagonally towards the bottom left and right corners. There is a straight black line that descends down from the root just below the feet of the woman before cutting in at a ninety degree angle to the right and then curving down towards the left and then back to the right, finishing at the centre of the bottom edge. There is another straight black line starting at the top of the white section on the right page edge and cutting to the left before cutting straight down at a ninety degree angle. Just below the tree roots on the right edge of the page is the artist’s initials and year that the art was created: “MD // 95” [caps].