Who is your favourite illustrator of the Arabian Nights?

I recently purchased the excellent 'Arabian Nights Illustrated', published by Dover. There are numerous reproductions of illustrations by Dulac, Folkard, Bull and Rhead. Dulac seems to have had a great affinity with this work and he seems to tower over his rivals here, although Rene Bull comes a close second. Detmold and Kay Nielsen are absent from this collection, oddly enough -their illustrations are wonderful. Who is your favourite illustrator of the 'Arabian Nights'.

Thank you for the invitation to this group. Maxfield Parrish and Edmund Dulac are my favorites among the illustrators featured in the Dover book; the Arabian Nights books featuring their work are two of my most serendipitous finds. Your mention of Detmold made me look him up in an online illustrators' page. I found two Arabian Nights illustrations in color, and you're right: they're great. And I would love to see the work Nielsen did.

Bluereader,
Thank you, it's good to see you here. Parrish's style is very original and powerful, and his AN illustrations have great atmosphere. Dulac seems to have a more Romantic style here and his illustrations capture the essence of the tales. I rather like the Folkard pictures, probably because his edition was the first I encountered as a boy. I have great admiration for the Detmold illustrations - he was another great stylist. I think the 'Nights' have been very fortunate in their illustrators - they seem to have caught the imagination of so many artists. Odd that Rackham never did a version - probably never invited to.

also http://arabiannightsbooks.com/main.do

or a wonderful site: http://www.nocloo.com/home/

so many images, so little time . . . sigh
lots of beautiful things. Pogany might be my favorite

Thanks for the links, bookstopshere--they're bookmarked for revisits!

This site features Golden Age illustrators as well (and more): http://www.bpib.com/illustra.htm.

Thank you for the fascinating links, bookstopshere and bluereader. These sites are excellent resources for people who love the great illustrators. I agree Pogany was a great illustrator - I have his 'Hungarian Fairy Book' and 'The Welsh Fairy Book'. His colour plates and black and white drawings are equally fine. These books are now quite rare (and expensive) - it would be nice if someone brought out new editions (Dover?)
I would appreciate if members drew our attention to illustrators and books which aren't so commonly encountered.

I love Jim V's bpib illustrator site - and his IMAGES series is quite wonderful - get them while you can! You might also enjoy http://www.spiritoftheages.com/ which has some beautiful things. I'm a fan of Dugald Walker too!

pageboy, thank you so much for the invitation. I actually do not own an illustrated AN which is a shame. I have some of the works that Kay Nielsen did for it collected in a different volume The Unknown Paintings of Kay Nielsen

I will clearly have to do some more investigating Parish is always so good with grand vistas but I love Dulac's faces.

Pogany is indeed striking.

I have a recommendation for lesser-known two illustrators that I love: Ann Mari Sjogren sometimes anglicized as Ana Mae Seagren whose A Day in Fairyland a huge vintage volume that is difficult to find and a still living illustrator is Errol Le Cain. Not all of his illustrations are the same style but his illustrations for The Twelve Dancing Princesses and The Snow Queen and some of the other fairy tales are definitely indebted to the Golden age illustrators.

http://www.errollecain.com/

http://www.fairypaintings.com/gallery.shtml

bookstopsher
I visited the site and there is certainly a mouth-watering range of material there. However I found it frustrating that I couldn't open the thumbnails. The site is unashamedly commercial. A pack of Sterett greetings card for $75! Who are they kidding? When so many sites offer free books (Project Gutenberg, Internet Archive and Arthur's Books etc) I wonder why the sites with artworks by Golden Age illustrators are so reluctant to share their work in a more altruistic manner - it's not as if they are working from the artists' original artwork, and they certainly don't own the rights - most of that material is in the public domain. I would love to devise my own site if I had the skills to provide a free resource for people like us. I have a reasonable archive of images that I would be happy to share for non-commercial purposes.

marensar,
thank you for the link to the Kay Nielsen book. I must look out for it (I thought it was out of print). Ana Mae Seagren is a name new to me. Was she American? There must be dozens of fine illustrators that we haven't come upon, especially if they were active in a foreign country,and I hope we will become more aware of some of them courtesy of our members.
I have been trying to pin down Parrish's style - he is so different from his contemporaries. Perhaps 20th Century Baroque is the style.

Wow. That's a bit like asking which is one's favorite child! I guess I do love Detmold, Dulac, & Bull the best as AN illustrators (but don't tell the others :-). Actually have the 1987 ed. by Rene Bull on order now and can't wait to page through it.

Another nice place to see find artists and art samples is artcyclopedia.com.

Pageboy, let's hope Dover gives us at least a collection of Pogany's fairy tale illustrations (like Rackham et al.), since it reprinted The Welsh Fairy Book without his pictures (except for the cover).

Not sure how well-known (or not) Ivan Bilibin is, but his illustrations for Russian Fairy Tales (retold by Gillian Avery, Everyman's Library Children's Classics, Knopf) are beautiful.

Pitcherbooks,
You can't go wrong with Detmold, Dulac and Bull. Did you know that Bull did two different editions of 'Arabian Nights'? The style of illustration in the later edition is so different, more gentle and dreamy, it is hard to credit it is the same artist. The book was published by Blackie and Son - the book is undated.

bluereader,
I wouldn't be surprised if Dover brought out a collection of Pogany's artwork. How odd that Dover, of all people, brought out an unillustrated 'Welsh Fairy Book.
I have an early edition of 'Russian Fairy Tales', and I agree, Bilbin is a fine illustrator.

Well, now I'm hoping I am getting the later edition of Bull's illustrations :-)

There are plenty of copies available secondhand. The edition you wanted was edited by Gladys Davidson. This isn't a particularly rare book so you shouldn't need to spend more than £10 or so for a copy. Avoid sellers who are asking ridiculous prices - they are trying it on!..... The illustration are attractive but I don't think any of the Blackie editions brought out the full quality of the artwork by Bull.

# 11 The Kay Nielsen book is out of print but I think I found my copy at a sill relatively reasonable price $12 I think.

Ana Mae Seagren is Swedish which is perhaps why she is letter known. Though Nielsen was Danish so it doesn't seem like it should be an impediment

It is sad that so much of the illustrated work I love is in expensive older volumes. I have found republished books here and there and have a nice volume on Artists of the Golden Age but it seems like these artists deserve a big book treatment that the rest of the art world gets ( I suppose it because illustrators are still considered "lesser" artists.)

# 18 You often see the old editions of these great books at ebay and abebooks, but you have to be so careful. Some of the prices are frankly ridiculous. Many dealers seem to think that an old book of this kind must be valuable even if it is falling to bits. You also have to be wary of the particular edition of the book. Later reprints were often very inferior products, and the plates in particular are very poor in quality. Often first editions had many more plates than later editions. This the case with the Virginia Sterrett book. The first edition of Charles Folkard's 'Ottomam Wonder Tales' had 16 plates, later editions just 4. It's always safer to look out for the desred book in a used bookstore.

#19 Yes pageboy, I have found good illustrated copies on ebay some quite reasonably but I also had an experience where someone sold me a book that had plates cut out and when I complained and wanted to return it they refused and accused me of cutting the plates out myself. It was horrid all around. Fortunately it was not an expensive volume but it was unpleasant and disappointing.

# 20 Yes, Marensr, there a quite a few rogues at ebay. I had my fingers burned a few times in the early days. Now I'm ultra careful.

Something similar happened to me - I managed to score some of Roy Krenkel's file copies back when his estate was sold, and owned them for several years. I then sold them to a dealer who came back when he realized that the Krenkel stories had been neatly razored out of them. The funny thing is that I never noticed as I already had good reading copies. Even funnier, the dealer didn't return them to me (I offered to refund his money) as he wanted them for his own collection, I guess due to provenance (I had receipts from my purchase plus a letter provided with each issue from the estate).

I wrote earlier in this thread that Rackham hadn't illustrated an edition of 'The Arabian Nughts', but I have a hazy recollection of a plate he did for one of the individual stories, but can't trace it. Is there one or is my memory playing tricks?

Your memory is correct! "The Authur Rackham Fairy Book" 1933 and reprinted in 1978... The Story of Aladdin, or the Wonderful Lamp (Arabian Nights) pp. 143, The Barmecide's Fest pp. 178, and Ali Baba pp. 192.

Illustrations in color: Sinbad carries the old man of the Sea on his Shoulders,
and New lamps of old, "She took then the little key, and opened the door, trembling".

Black and white drawings: Aladdin Commanded the Slave of the lamp....
"He have the Barmecide a violent blow...", and tailpiece illo. plus two silhouette illos.

Hope this helps...

Yes it does! Thank you, illustrationfan!

pageboy
I tried spiritoftheages and had the same issue you note in 10, but next time, all the thumbnails opened nicely to allow access. This does seem to be hit & miss. Worth a look at the Walker images.

For my money, it's the René Bull edition—which Calla is putting out (with every one of it's original illustrations) this September. Dulac's work is fantastic, but I give this the edge due to the incredible line work, and so much of it-

http://www.amazon.com/Arabian-Nights-Rene-Bull/dp/1606600087/ref=pd_rhf_p_t_1

I'll be first in line to buy one.