Immortalized

Imagine being immortalized in a portrait by the great golden age illustrator Edmund Dulac!

Dulac was commissioned by Her Serene Highness, Princess Alice of Monaco to paint her five-year-old goddaughter, Vivian St George in 1917. Who knows whatever happened to Vivian (who would be 99 if she were still alive today), but she is forever five in a near fantasy setting appropriate to Dulac.

But not such fantasy, as those are Vivian's pet rabbits. Dulac sketched the rabbits from life in a series of spontaneous brush and ink drawings, some shown below.

A Room Full of Parrots

Parrots were nearly, but not quite, as popular as peacocks as the bird of choice for decorative elements in the golden age of illustration.

Edmund Dulac — 1910

But what struck most her sight was a room full of parrots.

Ah, If Only

I'm out of touch the next couple of days. Will return to posting on Sunday.

'Til then, one more Dulac, this from later in his work, showing his simplified stylism. Still beautiful, still full of lovely texture. Ah, if only Fantasia's centaurettes had been designed by Dulac. I believe this was a design for a quilt.

Fairy-Tale Exquisite

Let's stay with Dulac for a moment or two.

This is an untitled, undated and generally unpublished watercolor of characters from popular nursery rhymes of Dulac's time. His texture and pattern in even the smallest areas — such as the costume fabrics — is fairy-tale exquisite.

Father Time

Father Time got a grip on me, stressing me with too many deadlines and too little time, absent-mindedly turning his hourglass over and over, faster and faster. Somewhere up on his infinite dusty shelves is a bottle with a little extra time that I sure could use. But he's too busy checking in on the young and the beautiful, bestowing them with Good Luck and Elixirs of Peace.

Edmund Dulac — Father Time —1906