elektra rex @rcxeira - Tumblr Blog

'this necklace designed by louis comfort tiffany, c. 1910, is made of favrile glass beetles set in gold' in the jeweled menagerie: the world of animals in gems - suzanne tennenbaum + janet zapata (2001)

ducissatenebrarum

The Hell's Mouth, according to the Winchester psalmist from circa 1150

bellilou42

There is no moral.

The wolf eats you one day,

And until it does,

The forest is beautiful

[Neverafter - Brennan Lee Mulligan]

charnel-grounds

Marian Williams, “Sleeping Beauty”

oil, collage, digital print, 2023

oldpaintings

The White Rose by René-Xavier Prinet (French, 1861–1946)

pmamtraveller

Gustave Doré, The Destruction of Leviathan (1865)

enchantedbook

“Small Horned Owl on Maple Branch under Full Moon” (1832) by Utagawa Hiroshige

velvetnightgallery

Ferdinand Knab (1834-1902)

toyastales

René Lalique Serpent Pectoral Pendant designed around 1899.

sartorialadventure

French, 1778

The last two images are a costume of an "infernal goddess" (please note the batwing shapes and the belt of snakes!). Because the colors are not mentioned in the description, the fashion plate has been colored two different ways, presumably by two different artists. You can also see how much clearer the details are in the second plate.

On the underskirt, the thing that looks like a baguette with wings is actually a heraldic symbol of a thunderbolt! It was genuinely imagined like a "bolt". The zig-zagging lines on the skirt might also represent lightning - note the little triangles that look like arrowheads on the bottoms of the lines. The rings appear to be almost an ouroboros: two snakes biting one another to form a loop. I can also see flames of fire, and what MIGHT be some kind of insects at the intersections of the lines? Let me know what you think they might be! Lots of snakes, and she's holding a caduceus (snake on a stick), which is weird, because that's the symbol of Asclepius, god of healing, which is not an underworld symbol at all. And what's with the cloud on top? I wonder if that's actually supposed to be a TREE with a snake around it, representing the serpent in the Garden of Eden? Her brooch appears to be a head of Medusa, with serpents for hair.