Altar Cup of Aagerup

Doyle was a successful comic artist and book illustrator who was interested in fairy subjects. In this watercolor, he illustrates the Danish legend of the altar cup of Aagerup, as described in Thomas Keightley’s book The Fairy Mythology (1828). Doyle’s drawing captures the moment when a group of trolls, who have offered a golden cup to a farmer’s servant from Aagerup, try to stop the man from fleeing. Doyle produced many versions of this subject during his career. Here, he sets the struggle in a dark forest with twisted trees, which enhances the nightmarish quality of the action (2022).