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Drawings

Altar Cup of Aagerup

1 of 3
Type
Drawings(Opens in new tab)
Date
ca. 1880
Accession number
59.55.446
Maker
Richard Doyle(Opens in new tab) (British, 1824–1883)
Dimensions
12 x 18 1/8 in. (30.5 x 46 cm.)
Medium
pen and ink and watercolor over traces of graphite on wove paper
Credit
The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. Gilbert Davis Collection
Department
European Art
Find out more
View in the Art Museum catalog(Opens in new tab)
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).

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