Tag Archives: Hippogriffs

Riding a Hippogriff

DescriptionEnglish: Woman carrying book of fables riding a hippogriff: frontispiece to Les Fables de La Fontaines by Gustave Moreau
Date1886
SourceLes Lettres et les arts (https://archive.org/details/p2leslettresetle1886pariuoft/page/60/mode/2up)
AuthorGustave Moreau

Rocketing upward on a very enthusiastic mythical beast, this young woman manages to keep her expression perfectly impassive and her drapery properly arranged. The picture is by Gustave Moreau; it was designed (in watercolor) as the frontispiece to an edition of the Fables of La Fontaine, and reprinted (in blue tint) in Les Lettres et les arts, just about the classiest magazine ever printed. The color of the beast in the original is described as “a strange and miraculous indigo.”