Ethereal, graceful, and stunning. These are the words that first come to mind when I think of what my child-hood vision of a fairy-tale princess is. Someone just like Walt Disney's Cinderella. That changed when I read the book The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Anderson when I was about 11 years old. This Queen was beautiful but cold... the illustrations in the book made her so pretty but at the same time so scary. That is what I thought of when I saw the pictures of Tilda Swinton from the C.S. Lewis story turned movie The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. It's been 27 years or so since I've read The Chronicles of Narnia, (I still remember my diorama book report I did on it in elementary school) so I don't remember much about her character in the story. I remember she was Jadis, the evil White Witch who ruled over Narnia for 100 years of winters... and judging by these photographs, she also reminds me of The Snow Queen. Beautiful, yet forbidding.
I love this throne. It looks very Art Deco to me, and the dress is a modern re-intrepertation to me of a French 18th Century royal dress.
Tilda Swinton as the Witch in The Chronicles of Narnia
This is the illustration from the edition I had as a child. It is done by famous storybook illustrator Edmund Dulac in 1911. I would stare at this picture while I listened to the story on my record player.
Another Snow Queen Illustration
Daria Klimentova as the Snow Queen
Image: Short List
Photograph: Rodney Smith
Image: Ruby Press
Image: Flickr
From: The Snow Queen illustrated by Edmund Dulac, 1911
