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Published in Arthur Quiller-Couch's edition of The Sleeping Beauty and Other Fairy Tales, in 1910, to accompany "Cinderella". This is one of 30 colour plates in the book and is published opposite page 64. The author Gordon Ray regarded the published volume as Dulac's best work. A reprint in 1978 by Weathervane Books used this image as the jacket illustration. Dulac lavished "historical and artistic accuracy" on the volume and "the binding, lettering style, end papers, pictures" were all integrated "into a unified whole" (Hughey). A review in the Illustrated London News noted that "in binding, type, and illustrations, it is all that could be desired". The deluxe edition sold out on publication and the publishers advertised the trade edition as "the most beautiful book ever published at a popular price". The collection comprises four tales: "The Sleeping Beauty", "Blue Beard", "Cinderella", and "Beauty and the Beast". "Mr Dulac's illustrations are, of course, the reason of this beautiful book's being. Mr Dulac, like Mr Rackham, has a genius for taking the classics of childhood and giving them a new interest for old readers. Children will probably object that he does not really illustrate the stories, but merely uses them as a sort of screen upon which to throw his magic arrangements of bright and moony colours" (The English Review). A review of the Leicester Galleries exhibition stated that "in... Dulac's watercolour illustrations to fairy tales... there is the same feeling for harmonious colour and decorative composition which has always distinguished his art" (The Academy). In his study of Dulac, Colin White specifically compared this illustration with "two other watercolours of similar encounters between lovers, drawn in 1912 and 1913 respectively, by Hugh Thomson and Kay Nielsen". Ultimately, White concluded that "each illustrator has an entirely different approach; each in his own way succeeds admirably", but in Dulac, "penwork is used mainly to define figures and objects, and it is the colour that is an essential element in modelling and in atmospheric effect" (White, p. 47). Exhibited: Leicester Galleries, November - December 1907, no. 50; Sheffield City Art Gallery, November 1982 - May 1983, no. 15; Sotheby's "Childhood: a Loan Exhibition of Works of Art", January 1988, no. 263. READ MORE Original drawing (317 x 259 mm) on artist's board (345 x 286 mm) with acidic backing removed. Drawn in ink and watercolour, signed and dated lower right ("Edmund Dulac 10"). Mounted, framed and glazed (framed size 500 x 432 mm). A fine and unfaded watercolour. The Academy, 10 December 1910, p. 571; The English Review, December 1910, p. 232; The Illustrated London News, 3 December 1910, p. 894; Ann Conolly Hughey, Edmund Dulac - His Book Illustrations, a Bibliography, 1995; Gordon N. Ray, The Illustrator and the

The Sleeping Beauty is a classic fairy tale which was originally published by Charles Perrault. It has been adapted and retold through various formats including books, films, and ballets. The story involves a beautiful princess, a sleeping enchantment, and a handsome prince.