SIDONIA AND OTTO VON BORK ON THE WATERWAY TO STETTIN, A PEN DRAWING

BY REGINALD SAVAGE

The reproduced pen drawing accompanies F. York Powell’s essay on the German author, Wilhelm Meinhold (1797-1851). Savage’s drawing portrays a scene from Meinhold’s novel, Sidonia the Sorceress (1847). The image portrays an action sequence from the novel where Sidonia is on the deck of a wooden ship sailing down a waterway. She wears a long dress, with her hair tied back in a formal style. She is in distress and holds the back of her right arm across her brow. Her left arm has been taken by a man who has leapt over a wooden barrel to her left. A sword drops to her feet, suggesting that the man’s attack resulted in her losing grip of the weapon. The man appears to be her father, Otto, formally dressed in billowing sleeves, wide breeches, and long leather boots. He raises his right arm in a fist towards his daughter. As he leaps, his cap, with a large feather pinned to it, falls from his head. He has dark hair and a beard. There is a sword in the hilt at his hip. Otto’s legs are crawling across additional sacks and boxes on the ship’s deck. To Sidonia’s left, a fish lies on the deck between a length of rope and an open hatch. The rope leads to a small wooden door for an upper cabin or storage area on deck. The boat deck fills the right foreground of the image. In the hatch, below the hem of Sidonia’s dress, a man is depicted as trapped in the hold. He looks up at Sidonia in anger. Behind this scene on the ship, the background depicts the land beyond the shoreline. It is divided into two by a group of trees directly behind Sidonia and Otto. To the right is a two-dimensional depiction of a medieval town surrounded by castle walls in the foreground and multiple buildings behind it. To the left, the artist depicts a pastoral scene with a group of horses and dogs racing along the shore as if on a hunt.

MLA citation:

Savage, Reginald. “Sidonia and Otto von Bork on the Waterway to Stettin, a pen drawing.” The Pageant, vol. 1, 1896, p. 125. Pageant Digital Edition, edited by Frederick King and Lorraine Janzen Kooistra, 2019-2021. Yellow Nineties 2.0, Ryerson University Centre for Digital Humanities, 2021, https://1890s.ca/pag1-savage-sidonia/

magazine_images The Pageant 1 Sidonia and Otto von Bork on the Waterway to Stettin, a pen drawing Reginald Savage 1896 Pen and ink drawing Illustration Swan Electric Engraving Company Europe and Eastern Europe Weapons, Sword, Feather, Hat, Cap, and Box Human Figure, Female Figure/ Woman, Male Figure/ Man, and Witch 16th century and 17th century Day, Building, Fish, Horse/ steed, Ship, Canal, and Waterscape