Watercolour and gouache, 29 by 18 cm

Provenance: the artist's estate; Campbell Wilson Fine Art

This is one of Baynes's Egyptian-influenced cover designs for H.Wood Jarvis's history of Egypt, Pharoah to Farouk. The book was published by John Murray in 1955. The artist's final cover abandoned this distinct style in favour of one that is arguably more conventionally illustrative (see below). This early cover design may also suggest a change in the title during the book's edit (the "From" in this design does not appear in the final title).

Anthony Baynes studied at the Slade School of Art where his 1946 painting The Betrayal (now in the collection of the UCL Art Museum) won the Mary Richgitz Prize. An accomplished designer of both murals, theatrical sets (briefly for Sadler's Wells in the 1940s) and decorated furniture, Baynes was a notable designer of dust jackets from the 1950s to the 1970s, working for publishers including John Murray, Capes and Eyre and Spottiswoode.