The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 20, 2024

The Queen of Sheba

The Queen of Sheba

1911
(British, 1882–1953)
Sheet: 31.6 x 25.4 cm (12 7/16 x 10 in.)
Location: not on view

Did You Know?

Edmund Dulac was such a devoted Anglophile that as a student his contemporaries referred to him as "l'Anglais" (English).

Description

A celebrated artist of the golden age of British book illustration, the French-born Edmund Dulac was inspired by Persian miniatures and manuscript illustration. This watercolor was one of a series of four scenes painted to accompany a poem by André Dumas, Figures of the Orient. Dulac depicted legendary enchantresses of the East: Circe, Salome, Scheherazade, and here, the Queen of Sheba. Aloft a camel, the dark-haired beauty languorously surveys the arid landscape as she and her entourage approach the Holy Land. Vibrant silks spill out of the queen’s gold and lapis howdah, a veritable mosaic of texture and pattern.
  • ?-1931
    James Parmelee [1855-1931], Washington, DC, by descent to Alice Maury Parmelee, Washington, DC
    1931-1940
    Alice Maury Parmelee [1862-1940], Washington, DC, bequeathed to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
    1940-
    Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • L'Illustration (1911). Reproduced
    White, Colin. Edmund Dulac. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1976. Mentioned: pp. 49-50
    Hughey, Ann Conolly. Edmund Dulac: His Book Illustrations, A Bibliography. Potomac, MD: Buttonwood Press, 1995. Mentioned: no. 28
    Lemonedes, Heather. British Drawings: The Cleveland Museum of Art. Exh. Cat. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2013. Mentioned: pp. 138-41, 145, no. 48a; Reproduced: p. 139
  • British Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art . The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 10-May 26, 2013).
  • {{cite web|title=The Queen of Sheba|url=false|author=Edmund Dulac|year=1911|access-date=20 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1940.738