The Yellow Nineties Online

An Illustration to the King’s Quair DIALV4_icon8 DIALV4_icon8 An Illustration to the Kings Quair Charles Ricketts Walker and Boutall DIALV4_15im 1896 In the middle of The Writing on the Wall between page 24 and page 25 unknown Illustration Pen and ink drawing fantastic fantastic outdoor setting exterior boat ship rocks water figure mythological figure male figure female figure laurel wreath lance arrow torch shield roses branch An Illustration to the King’s Quair The reproduction of a pen drawing is a diptych printed in landscape orientation. The illustrations depict scenes from The Kingis Quair, a poem attributed to King James I of Scotland. Both images are printed in black ink with a thin double outline and appear to be rotated 90 degrees to the left. Image 1, on the left, shows three figures in a landscape of swirling water and standing stones. Two of the figures stand on the edge of a cliff in the foreground, while one floats horizontally above them, facing towards the right. The standing figures lean towards the right, as if travelling in that direction, but are looking backward, facing left in profile. The leftmost figure, a woman, wears flowing robes and a laurel wreath encircles her long hair. She carries a shield in her left hand and long horn in her right. Beside her, on the right, is a winged male youth wearing a tunic. He holds a lance in his left hand and a sheaf of arrows in his right. A garland of roses is draped over his right side. Above them floats a female figure wearing a star-spangled robe, whose long hair flows behind her. She holds a torch in her left hand; the fire extends above and over her body, coming to a point on the left side of the image plane. Behind the figures, swirling water rises up in waves against large standing stones rise above their heads, nearly reaching the top of the frame, and recede into the background. Above them are a few clouds. Image 2, on the right, shows a fantastic landscape with five figures. In the extreme foreground an attenuated robed figure lies partially in water, grasping the right hand of a woman who bends forward to raise him up onto land. His eyes are closed and his face tilts up towards the woman. The dark-haired woman wears a long dress and flowers in her hair. She holds a leafy branch in her left hand. Behind them, the water is depicted in large, swirling waves, out of which rises a man standing in a small, wooden boat. He wears long robes and raises both arms to the sky with his back to the viewer. On the extreme sides of the frame are tall, standing rocks, and smaller, dark-coloured rocks recede into the background. The rocks are the same standing rocks from the left image. In the centre background, in the sky, are two figures encircled by clouds and a series of concentric circles. The figures are a young male who is held by a long-haired woman whose draped robes partially cover both of their bodies. The standing man in the middleground of the image reaches towards them.