The Daisy Fairy - Bag

Arthur Rackham, 1867 - 1939 was an English artist and illustrator. While he worked as a staff artist for a London newspaper, he also began illustrating books. He became skillful using the new halftone process, and his highly detailed drawings revealed a unique imagination. He achieved renown with a 1900 edition of Grimm's Fairy Tales, and his illustrations for Rip Van Winkle (1905) brought him recognition in America as well. Altogether he illustrated more than 60 books, including classics of children's literature as well as works by William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, John Milton, Richard Wagner, and Edgar Allan Poe. Country people have always associated fairies with flowers. Victorian painters and illustrators frequently depict fairies playing among flowers, plants, and undergrowth, as Rackham, the greatest of the Edwardian illustrators, has done here. This illustration was done with pen, ink, and watercolor.