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Nancy Ekholm Burkert
(American, b. 1933)
The Emperor Lay in his Huge Magnificent Bed
1965
7 1/2 × 17 in. (19.1 × 43.2 cm)
2021.2.1
© Nancy Ekholm Burkert
Gift of Lawrence and Barbara Seeborg, 2021
Nancy Ekholm Burkert’s illustrations are marked by her exhaustive linear detail and extensive research. Her knowledge of early Chinese painting was put to use to illustrate Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale The Nightingale in 1965. Originally published in 1843, the fairy tale recounts the story of an Emperor of China said to have sought out a nightingale to provide beautiful songs at his court. When the emperor falls ill, the bird sings to ease him on his deathbed, the scene which is depicted here. Death is so moved by the song of the bird that he allows the Emperor to live.
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