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This etching from David Hockney’s celebrated Six Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm portfolio depicts the somewhat obscure story Old Rinkrank, which Hockney chose to illustrate because it began with the words ‘A king built a glass mountain’, and the problem of drawing a glass mountain intrigued him. He tried to draw the glass eight different ways, even smashing a sheet of glass and piling it up as reference. He ultimately decided to draw the tree and house behind the glass mountain, distorting their reflection to indicate the mountain’s transparency.
Hockney describes how he heightened the emotional impact of this chapter of the story with various etching techniques: “The Princess then is found in the glass mountain (33) a lot older, so I made her short-sighted and ugly, and with big chunks of glass still around so you see her magnified in it. I used opposite techniques for this. This bit’s done with hard-ground (line etching) and that’s done with soft-ground (pencil on tissue paper) etching, so the line is soft.” Her glasses are an example of Hockney’s sense of humor with their zany spirals. Despite her age, she dons a close-fitting dress skimming her decollete.
The Princess after many years in the glass mountain (Six Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm) 1969
Etching and aquatint on W S Hodgkinson paper watermarked “DH” and “PP”
Plate 17.7 x 12.6 in / 45 x 32 cm
Paper 24.75 x 17.5 in / 62.87 x 44.45 cm
Unique publisher’s copy aside from the edition of 400 books and 100 portfolios
Soft line in the lower sheet
