Edmund Dulac – Princess and the Pea (The Real Princess)

“Oh terribly badly!” said the Princess. “I have hardly closed my eyes the whole night! Heaven knows what was in the bed. I seemed to be lying upon some hard thing, and my whole body is black and blue this morning. It is terrible!”

They saw at one that she must be a real princess when she had felt the pea through twenty mattresses and twenty feather beds. Nobody but a real princess could have such a delicate skin.”

Edmund Dulac, The Princess and the Pea (The Real Princess), 1911

Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale “The Princess and the Pea” (in Danish: “Prinsessen paa Ærten) was published on the 8th May 1835 in Copenhagen. Edmund Dulac’s illustration of the fairy tale is my favourite and I have been in love with it for many months now, so I thought this was a perfect moment to write about it.

The fairy tale tells a story about a picky prince who wants to marry a real princess and he travels far and wide to find himself a suitable bride, but none of the princesses that he meets have that something that he’s looking for; as beautiful and charming as the princesses are, neither one is the real princess that he is looking for. One stormy, rainy night a beautiful girl seeks shelter in his castle and she claims that she is the real princess even though her appearance, all wet and disarrayed from the wind and rain, doesn’t match that of a real princess. The Prince’s mother puts her claims to a test by putting just one pea under many, many, many matresses. Of course, the Princess is the real Princess and even that little pea is enough to vex her all night long and all hopes of a good slumber are lost. In the morning, admitting her discomfort, both the Prince and his mother know that only a real princess would be so delicate.

This illustration by Edmund Dulac is, to me, the most beautiful illustration of the fairy tale that I have seen. Or perhaps I should say, the illustration of this particular scene which is, in a way, the most important and most instantly recognisable scene. I love how the scene is at once cluttered and yet devoid of unnecessary details. The angle and the way it is cropped makes the space appear almost claustrophobic; we can’t see the entirety of the bed and we don’t know what is in the rest of the chamber. I love all the different colours and patterns of the mattresses and beddings. The bed is the main element of the scene really, the pea is hidden and although we know it is there we cannot see it, and it gives the artist a chance to be playful with all the decorative elements. I also think the curtains in the background are a lovely way to frame the scene and they have a Medieval-inspired tapestry-like print on them with a damsel in red which brings to mind the romance and chivalry of the Medieval times. And then there is the princess, so small on the top of all those mattresses, exasperate from the lack of sleep and her aching back.

Here is Hans Christian Andersen’s short fairy tale:

“THERE was once a prince, and he wanted a princess, but then she must be a real princess. He travelled right round the world to find one, but there was always something wrong. There were plenty of princesses, but whether they were real princesses he had great diffuculty in discovering; there was always something which was not quite right about them. So at last he had to come home again, and he was very sad because he wanted a real princess so badly.

One evening there was a terrible storm; it thundered and lightened and the rain poured down in torrents indeed it was a fearrful night.

In the middle of the storm somebody knocked at the town gate, and the old King himself went to open it.

It was a princess who stood outside, but she was in a terrible state from the rain and the storm. The water steramed out of her hair and her clothes, it rain in at the top of her shoes and out at the heel, but she said that she was a real princess.

“Well we shall soon see if that is true”, thought the old Queen, but she said nothing. She went into the bedroom, took all the bedclothes off and laid a pea on the bedstead: then she took twenty mattresses and piled them on the top of the pea, and then twenty feather beds on the top of the mattresses. This was where the princess was to sleep that night. In the morning they asked her how she had slept.

“Oh terribly badly!” said the Princess. “I have hardly closed my eyes the whole night! Heaven knows what was in the bed. I seemed to be lying upon some hard thing, and my whole body is black and blue this morning. It is terrible!”

They saw at one that she must be a real princess when she had felt the pea through twenty mattresses and twenty feather beds. Nobody but a real princess could have such a delicate skin.

So the prince took her to be his wife, for now he was sure that he had found a real princess, and the pea was put into the Museum, where it may still be seen if no one has stolen it.

Now this is a true story.“