hazelnut eyelashes, goblin ribbon hair, blackberry blood lips
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Princess Tuvstarr and the Fishpond (1913) | John Bauer.
John Bauer (June 4, 1882 – November 20, 1918) was a Swedish painter and illustrator best known for his illustrations of Bland tomtar och troll (Among Gnomes and Trolls). Princess Tuvstarr and the Fishpond, painted in 1913, is perhaps Bauer’s most notable work.
(via princessetears)
ca. 1899
Oh my goodness look at all those tiny little spangles and the tiny little ribbon roses. The detail on this dress is just so beautiful.
"Then he led him out into the princess’s pleasure gardens, and there he saw a frightful sight. On every tree hung three or four king’s sons who had wooed the princess, but had not been able to guess the riddles she gave them. Their skeletons rattled in every breeze, so that the terrified birds never dared to venture into the garden. All the flowers were supported by human bones instead of sticks, and human skulls in the flower-pots grinned horribly. It was really a doleful garden for a princess. “Do you see all this?” said the old king; “your fate will be the same as those who are here."
Approaching the shrub, she threw open her arms, as with a passionate ardor, and drew its branches into an intimate embrace—so intimate that her features were hidden in its leafy bosom and her glistening ringlets all intermingled with the flowers.
“Give me thy breath, my sister,” exclaimed Beatrice; “for I am faint with common air. And give me this flower of thine, which I separate with gentlest fingers from the stem and place it close beside my heart.”
I’m the father of four daughters.
Three of them are sleeping.
One is awake and waiting for me.
Her bones are a pigeon’s bones.
I lie on them gently, gently.
—Francine Prose, The Blue Angel
http://goldenspindle.tumblr.com/
my new fairy tale blog, thank you so much to scarlet-ibis for the beautiful url ♥
Sadayakko as Ophelia (1905)
“Sadayakko (貞奴) was her stage name as an actress and dancer, derived from a combination of her real name, Sada Koyama, and her geisha name, Yakko.
Born in 1871, the twelfth child of a Samurai family, which had fallen into poverty, she was indentured to the Hamada okiya (geisha house) in the Yoshi-cho hanamachi (geisha district) of Tokyo at the age of four. In 1893, after a successful career as a geisha, she retired at the age of twenty-two to marry Otojiro Kawakami, a ‘new wave’ actor and theatrical entrepreneur. However, after only a few years of marriage they were in severe financial difficulties when one of his major ventures failed.
So, in 1899 the couple leapt at an opportunity to tour the United States of America where, at the age of twenty-eight she re-invented herself as Sadayakko (or Sada Yacco), the first female actor in Japan for two hundred and fifty years. After a tumultuous beginning, Sadayakko eventually found acclaim and they went on to tour Paris and the European capitals where Sadayakko was feted as a star, her performances influencing artistic luminaries of the time such as, Pablo Picasso, Isadora Duncan and Claude Debussy.
The couple returned to Japan in August 1902 and went on to champion ‘new wave’ theatre and European-style productions at home, re-interpreting many of the Western classics for a Japanese audience.
Her portrayal of Orié (Ophelia) was a triumph, her long black tresses tumbling to her waist, her face like that of a little lost child, wearing a pale water-blue dress trimmed with white lace, flowers in her hair and in her hands, singing snatches of nursery rhymes “rain is falling on his grave…no, not rain, it is tears of blood”.” (source)
(via fairytalemood)
