A signature reading "V. E. Shaffer" appears at lower left on the cover of The Etude Music Magazine for July 1929, beneath an illustration captioned "The Marionette Opera" showing a string-puppet company in performance — a flautist, a cellist, a violinist, a soprano in a rose-coloured gown and a soldier in shako and crossbelts, suspended on visible strings before a red curtain and a gilt proscenium. Unlike many commercial signatures of the period this one is fully legible: the initials and surname read without ambiguity at ordinary magnification, and the transcription is not in question. Nothing further is documented. No illustrator of this name appears in the standard reference literature on American commercial illustration. Nationality, dates, training and the extent of the body of work are unrecorded, and no interior credit for the cover art has been identified. The handling is worth recording as evidence in its own right. The cover is executed in transparent washes with soft modelling and a theatrical staging, closer in register to children's book illustration than to the flat graphic manner used on other Etude covers of the same period. Whether this reflects one hand's habit or an art director's brief for this particular subject is not established. The Record Institute records this signature without asserting an identity.
Nationality: Undocumented
Active period: 1929