John Erskine James Yunge-Bateman (1897-1971) "illustated the last two books that Christopher Sandford designed and published before he sold the Golden Cockerel Press in 1959. His lush highly-worked drawings were reproduced in collotype" (Horne, p. 92). The present painting is unsigned, the attribution from family tradition. Comparison with the 2 Golden Cockerel Press Yunge-Bateman books leaves little doubt that this is correct. However both books use colloptye for the plates, so that the lush colour of the originals is lost. The painting here illustrates perhaps the most famous verse in The Song of Songs Solomon's "Stay with me flaggons, comfort me with apples, for I am sick of love". It seems very likely that this is a survivor of a projected Sandford Golden Cockerel, which would have been the third Golden Cockerel Press edition of the text, song of solomonitis indeed." (https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/20751/lot/206/)