Framed SIGNED PHOTOGRAPH of Winston Churchill and Rufus Leaving Downing Street

Description

A smashing candid photograph of Winston Churchill with his poodle Rufus II, taken August 10,1953 through the window of his car as Churchill left Downing Street for the drive to Chartwell.

This vintage gelatin silver print is signed in ink ”Winston S. Churchill” along the upper edge of the car roof. The signature has faded somewhat.

The print measures 7 1/4 x 9 1/4 inches and has been handsomely matted in multi-ply and framed (16 x 17 1/4 inches overall).

Two poodles, Rufus and Rufus II, consecutively took up residence with the Churchills after the war. Rufus, brownish red and sometimes called Paprika by Winston, was a present from his principal private secretary, John Colville. Rufus II was a gift from Walter Graebner, Churchill’s Time Inc. publishing coordinator for his Second World War memoirs, after the original Rufu was killed by a car in October 1947.