The Snow Queen and Other Tales by Adrienne Ségur

The Snow Queen and Other Tales by Adrienne Ségur

C. 1962

Color Lithographs

This whimsical winter fairytale illustration showcases the delicate narrative style of celebrated French artist Adrienne Ségur. Originally created as a full-page color plate for the 1962 Deluxe Golden Book anthology The Snow Queen and Other Tales, published by Golden Press, the charming scene captures a lively, folklore-inspired celebration amidst a snow-covered forest. The central focus is a massive, gentle brown bear standing upright and playfully strumming a traditional triangular balalaika. A young girl in heavily embroidered folk attire with braided hair dances behind a pair of snow-dusted birch trees on the left, while a small, expressive hare and a skunk dance joyfully in the snowy foreground against a backdrop of bare winter branches.

This plate exemplifies the mid-twentieth-century peak of commercial offset lithography, which allowed publishers to replicate Ségur’s layered original mediums of watercolor, gouache, pen, and ink with immense color fidelity. Active from the 1930s through the 1970s, Ségur became legendary for her meticulously detailed, luminescent fairytale worlds that favored romanticized, ethereal beauty over simpler mid-century cartoon styles. Her work on this landmark anthology remains highly significant to collectors of children's literature, representing a golden era of high-end, lavishly produced picture books that elevated children's commercial illustrations into celebrated works of decorative art.

Dimensions: H 12” x 9” W

Condition: In very good condition