A young woman stands barefoot on a carpet of wildflowers, her figure bathed in the strange, dappled light that seeps through a gnarled, almost sentient tree. The violin she cradles is not just an instrument but a spell, her tilted head and gentle smile inviting the viewer to imagine the music that might drift through this enchanted grove. The tree behind her is no ordinary backdrop: its swirling knots and hollow eyes seem to pulse with a life of their own, as if listening or even responding to her song.

Dulac’s palette is rich and jewel-toned, with the orange glow in the background hinting at sunset or perhaps the embers of some unseen fire, lending the scene a sense of quiet magic and anticipation. Created in 1915 for The dreamer of dreams by The Queen of Roumania, this illustration sits squarely in the golden age of book art, when publishers commissioned celebrated artists like Edmund Dulac to bring new worlds to life for readers. Dulac’s work, with its blend of Art Nouveau line and Symbolist mood, was prized for its ability to turn stories into visual poetry. While little is recorded about the specific journey of And There Leaning, its presence in a Harvard collection speaks to the era’s reverence for the illustrated book as both literary and visual treasure.

Look again at the figure’s serene face and the uncanny tree—here, the boundaries between dream and waking, music and silence, seem to dissolve.