Eleanor Vere Boyle (1825 – 1916) illustrated poetry and prose by some of the most popular authors of her time. She regularly drew and painted using ink and watercolour, sketching landscapes, animals and her children from life. She also made drawings from her imagination, often reflecting spiritual themes.

This illustration is from Boyle’s 1875 retelling of Beauty and the Beast, a fairy tale where a woman is imprisoned by a monster and falls in love with him. Unlike other illustrated versions before or since, Boyle gave her beast walrus-like tusks and flippers.

In several of her illustrations, Boyle used shell gold – a mixture of finely ground gold powder and gum arabic (tree sap) that would have been stored in a shallow seashell.

In the final publication, the caption for this illustration reads, "Upon the strange prickly leaves, some one had curiously carved Beauty's name ......... The Beast came near, and the roses fell from his grasp."