Snapdragon

Arthur Boyd Houghton

1865

Wood engraving by the Dalziel Brothers

7 x 5½ inches

Illustration for Home Thoughts and Home Scenes, plate 27.

This images represents a popular contemporary game which involved snatching fruit out of a flame. Though some of the children are excited, most are simply afraid, an effect heightened by the mask-like faces, miserable expressions, and curious, threatening chiaroscuro: Gothic anxiety in the heart of the bourgeois home.

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Scanned image and text by Simon Cooke

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