The Student's Tale of the Patient Grizelda de Dulac, Edmund - 1942

1942. Watercolor on board, signed "Edmund Dulac" (lower right), titled and docketed in margin under mat. 12 x 13-1/2 in. Removed from frame and mat. Watercolor on board, signed "Edmund Dulac" (lower right), titled and docketed in margin under mat. 12 x 13-1/2 in. Beginning in 1924, celebrated Orientalist illustrator Dulac was commissioned by the Hearst magazine American Weekly to produce an annual series of cover illustrations on a literary or historical theme. This piece is the first of 8 covers illustrating scenes from the Canterbury Tales, and depicts a pivotal scene from "The Clerk's Tale," in which Griselda, exiled from her noble husband's home, returns to her father's house in rags.

The Patient Griselda was a popular figure in medieval folklore, appearing in both Boccaccio's Decameron and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, as well as subseuqent works by Petrarch and others. An impossibly virtuous common woman who marries (in Chaucer's version) a king, her virtue is tested when her husband torments her to prove her obedience and love. When he sends her back to her father, she voluntarily gives up her clothes, a sacrifice symbolically conveyed by her Christ-like posture in Dulac's illustration.

Though Griselda's story most directly evokes the sufferings of Job, in Dulac's rendering of the scene, she is presented as a female Christ figure in the classical Western tradition. Although this moment in Griselda's is nominally one of defeat, this illustration conveys her religious sense of purpose and surrounds her with an incredulous father and weeping followers. Later in the story, Griselda's dedication is rewarded: her husband takes her back, and they live a long and happy life together. Literature: American Weekly, 9 August 1942, cover illustration; White, Edmund Dulac, p. 205