Born in 1901, Francis Marshall had been educated for the Navy, but in the middle 1920's he resigned his commission, having decided upon an artists' career. He set out to study at the Slade School.
In 1928, he was taken on by Vogue where he remained until the war in 1939 took him back into the navy and off to Bath, where he served as a Camouflage Officer for the duration of the war. He was British Vogue's star illustrator. He was distinctively English in the quality of his social observation, picking up pointers of class and social standing that show elegance and chic.
Marshall's descriptions of the British social round, the horses, the balls, the boxes at the opera, were among the principal delights of Vogue throughout the 20's and 30's.
Always as happy at the theatre, as at the hunting field and always in the prettiest, most elegant of company.
He continued to be active as a freelance illustrator after the Second World war, illustrating for the Paris couturiers but not for Vogue. He accumulated an impressive body of work to his credit.
Jacques Fath himself had died in 1954, but his wife Genevieve had presented this collection.
Francis Marshall died in 1980 at the age of 79.