The Nightingale and Other Stories

French-born painter Edmund Dulac moved to London at the turn of the last century, just as the demand for luxury illustrated gift editions was skyrocketing. In the decade and a half that followed, Dulac's sumptuous palette, luminous sense of light, and fertile gift for make believe served him well as the illustrator of the Arabian Nights Tales, Shakespeare's "The Tempest," and Andersen's fairy tales. In this exquisitely painted scene from Andersen's "The Little Mermaid," the story's heroine saves the life of the human prince with whom she has fallen hopelessly in love.

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