marian @novichka - Tumblr Blog

fayriequeene

rabbitinthemeadow

Lilacs, Part 6 // West Mountain Road, MA

frostedmagnolias

Blue Silk Dress with Chiffon

1900s

Sörmland Museum

flowerytale

Salvatore Postiglione (1861–1906), Dante and Beatrice (detail)

frostedmagnolias

Visiting Dress

1880s

Victoria Museum in Kyiv

frostedmagnolias

Pale Blue Afternoon Dress

c. 1867

Silk taffeta and silk faille

Label: Worth & Bobergh / 7. Rue de la Paix 7 Paris

Albany Institute of History & Art

avonlea71

Evening dress, 1895

jewellery-box

Silk dress, circa 1820. Nordiska Museet.

fayriequeene

Thinking about what to make for my Halloween costume this year? My son wants to be a unicorn so I need something that sort of matches?

I was considering just re-wearing my Titania costume from last year if I can’t think of anything else ✨🧚🏻‍♀️

adarkrainbow

After what I said reblogging @princesssarisa 's posts I did check for the images d'Epinal and I was right - the popular fairy godmother of these illustrations was the traditional elegant and majestic enchantress.

One version going for "vaguely pseudo-exotic but still very European"

Another for "She looks so similar to the stepmother and Cinderella-as-a-princess because, well, it's cheap product, we reuse as much designs as we can here, we literaly have three colors on our palette"

The third one I found also goes for the weird "Vaguely Oriental but also European Medievalism at once?"

And we also have a Victorian-fairy ballerina straight out of the opera:

There's a lot more, but it does confirm my feeling that, by depicting the fairy godmother as this plain, ordinary looking, servant-dressed old fat woman carving the pumpkin, Gustave Doré was purposefully subverting the fairy godmother imagery popular in France at the time. (To fully confirm this one would have to check at the illustrations in books too, those published before Doré's edition, but I suspect we would have similar results as the "elderly fairy godmother" seems to be more of a British visual tradition, tied to how she looks more witch-like when the Brits draw her?)