LEE, Alan (illus.); Brian Froud.

£7,000 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

Original artwork for Faeries: "The Unseelie Court". Published as a double-page spread in Faeries, written and illustrated by Alan Lee and Brian Froud and published in 1978 by Harry N. Abrams, Inc. in New York and Souvenir Press in London.Alan Lee is best known for his illustrations for the 1991 centenary edition of The Lord of the Rings. Director Peter Jackson liked Lee's interpretation of Middle Earth so much that he recruited Lee as a lead conceptual designer for his iconic film adaptations. His work on the project earned Lee a 2004 Academy Award for Best Art Direction for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, the final film in the trilogy.Faeries predates Lee's illustrations for Tolkien's works by over a decade, however his distinctive style and fondness for the fantastic is already evident and the book was a huge success, selling over half a million copies in nine languages by 1984.On the reverse of the board is inscribed 'SLUAGH/Flying in cloud - attacking mortal'. The Sluagh, also known as The Host, are a malicious sector within the Unseelie Court in Scottish and Irish mythology. The drawing shows the malevolent Sluagh abducting a terrified mortal. The text accompanying the illustration in the book reads "The Scottish Unseelie Court, as opposed to the more beneficient Seelie Court, are thoroughly evil. While the Seelie Court are most commonly seen about twilight, the Unseelie Court, or more particularly those members of it known as 'The Host' fly through the ai

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