[Basil Crage ('Wilhelm'), English costume designer.] Twelve watercolour designs for ladies' theatrical costumes, including three inspired by postage stamps (another two of which are in the Victoria and Albert Museum).

Each of the twelve designs is on a piece of card, ranging in size from 21.5 x 14 cm to 14.5 x 9 cm. In fair condition, aged and worn, with occasional loss to extremities. Little is known about Crage, but he does have 26 watercolour designs in the Victoria & Albert Museum, and one item in the National Portrait Gallery ('Henry Relph as Little Tich'). All twelve in the present collection show women wearing Crage's designs, and the three largest (all signed 'Basil Crage 94'), are part of the same series as two of those held by the Victoria and Albert Museum. They depict women wearing costumes inspired by 4d, 10d and one shilling postage stamps. (The two Victoria and Albert Museum items are: S.752-1983, 'Costume design for a One Penny Postage Stamp by Basil Crage, unidentified production'; and S.753-1983, 'Design by Basil Crage for a vaudeville show of a young woman dressed as a one-penny postage stamp.') Another design from 1894 is of a woman in a diaphanous costume, while the latest item, from 1896, shows a woman with fairy wings, with three variant colourways for her bodice on the same card. The seven 'Wilhelm' items are more conventional, and include an eighteenth-century maid, women in Spanish and Scottish costumes, another in the dress of an male Elizabethan courtier, and two (from 1892) each showing a girl and boy in historical costume. Four of the cards have pencil notes on the back, including 'Jeaffrey [sic] | Rand | London', 'Haskell | Eugene | London', and 'Palmer | Gordon | Meyer | Seymour | Bannister | Cousins | Goold | <?>'.