#marienkind

[princess-ibri]

How did Janet become FG's apprentice?

A good question! I've decided that Janet is a young human girl who's parents died when she was a baby, and she was left in the care of her old grandfather. He knew he didnt have much time left either to take care of her, so he called on a Fairy who he'd met and aided in his younger days and asked her to find a good home for Janet.

The Fairy Godmother had never been able to have a child of her own, though she'd helped many, and she saw that Janet had magical potential, so she decided to take her under her wings (so to speak) and train her herself.

So Janet more properly would be a Sorceress/Enchantress according to the worldbuilding of the DisneyVerse as she doesn't have fairy blood herself but she's still training for basically a fairy godmother position.

Credit for og illustration to Oskar Herrfurth, for the fairytale "Marienkind or Mary's Child" by the Brothers Grimm, where a young girl is raised by the holy Virgin Mary

[yamimin520]

Marienkind

Artist: Heinrich Lefler & Joseph Urban

Date: 1905

[thereadersdesire]

[thefugitivesaint]

Heinrich Lefler (1863-1919) & Joseph Urban (1872-1933), 'Marienkind' (Our Lady's Child; or, Mary's Child), from ''Grimm's Märchen'', 1905

[sister-sunday]

So saß es ein Jahr nach dem anderen und fühlte den Jammer und das Elend der Welt.

Marienkind, Brüder Grimm

[peabodywunderkammer]

What you are looking at right now is a lovely illustration from the Peabody Library's copy of Marienkind, a short story by the Brothers Grimm featuring Art Nouveau illustrations by Marie Heinrich Lefler and Joseph Urban.  We are really excited to show this off because it received top notch care from The Sheridan Libraries' Conservation unit!  In addition to stabilizing the acidic pages, the conservators also encapsulated each page in mylar to allow continued access to this beautiful and highly disturbing book.

It's disturbing, and how!  The story features a young impoverished girl who is visited by the Virgin Mary.  Mary gives her 13 keys that open doors revealing rooms full of the beautiful mysteries of heaven, but the girl is instructed only to open the first 12 doors.  She is guided by angels who attempt to get her to obey Mary's instructions, but as we all know, girls just wanna have fun, and the next thing you know, she opens the forbidden door, goes into a coma, awakens years later in a thorny cage, walks around nude for awhile, marries a king, has a bunch of children who are then promptly abducted by Mary because the girl refuses to admit she opened the forbidden 13th door, is then accused of being a cannibal, and only admits to her childhood mischief when faced with death.

Spoiler alert: She doesn't die! The children are returned to her!  The Germans rejoice because their queen isn't a cannibal!  Huzzah!

[theopenwindow-blog-blog]

Heinrich Lefler & Joseph Urban

Vintage Children's Illustrations / Marienkind (1914) Illustrations from a collection of fairytales, which were originally published around 1904 by German publisher "Scholz Verlag", and have been reprinted by "Verlag Neues Berlin" in 1981.

Heinrich Lefler (1863-1919) and his brother-in-law, Joseph Urban (1872-1933) are Austrian artists associated with the Golden Age of Illustration - they are particularly linked with the Jungendstil movement (the German variant of Art Nouveau).

Although Urban was born in Vienna, Austria, he died in New York City. Not only was he known as a children's book illustrator, he was also trained as an architect and was known also for his theatrical design. He immigrated to the United States in 1912 to become the art director of the Boston Opera Company. Two years later he moved to New York where he designed productions for the Ziegfeld Follies and the Metropolitan Opera. William Randolph Hearst was an important client and supporter. Most of Urban's architectural work in the United States has been demolished, with the exceptions of Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida and The New School and the base of The Hearst Tower in New York City.

The color gel Urban Blue (Roscolux #81) is named for him. images found via allerleirau flickr page Other information found via Spirit of the Ages and Wikipedia