Rackham’s final project was a set of illustrations for Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows. He was suffering from rheumatism and dying of cancer. Yet, he completed a series of twelve scenes, two of which are of Ratty and Mole’s picnic on the riverbank–”Shove That Under Your Feet He Observed To The Mole As He Passed It Down Into The Boat” and “The Mole Begged As A Favour To Be Allowed To
Arthur Rackham. “Shove That Under Your Feet He Observed to the Mole as He Passed it Down into the Boat,”
Unpack It All By Himself.
It is purported that the last illustration was of Rat and Mole’s packing the boat and Rat struggling under the weight of his “fat, wicker luncheon basket.” But I’ve not found evidence, and James Hamilton, a Rackham biographer, does not mention this poignant detail.
However, Rackham did not illustrate the meeting of Ratty and Sea Rat in the chapter “Wayfarers All.” This is the edgiest chapter of the novel that describes the onset of the Fall when Ratty is “unsettled, depressed, and inclined to be querulous.”
No one has suggested that Ratty and Mole’s picnic under the willows is a last supper.
Featured Image: Arthur Rackham. “The Mole Begged As A Favour To Be Allowed To Unpack It All By Himself,”
See Kenneth Grahame. The Wind in the Willows. Illustrations by Arthur Rackham. New York: The Heritage Press, 1940; James Hamilton. Arthur Rackham: A Life with Illustration. London: Arcade Publishing,