The first thing to catch the eye in Circle Of Mist is the sense of hush and watchfulness that hangs between earth and sky. The dreamer lies curled on a bed of blue flowers, clutching a white cross, his face turned away from the world of waking. His sleep is not peaceful: three spectral figures, their faces hollow and green-lit, drift above him like memories made flesh, their long hair and robes dissolving into the rock.

Across from them, a pale owl waits on its perch, a sentinel between the living and the dream. The deep blue of the night sky, pricked with sharp stars, presses down, making the dreamer’s vulnerability all the more acute. Dulac’s palette of cool greens and blues, punctuated only by the stark white of the cross and the owl’s feathers, draws the viewer into a world where every detail is charged with meaning. Created in 1915 for The dreamer of dreams by The Queen of Roumania, this illustration by Edmund Dulac belongs to a golden age of book illustration, when artists conjured entire worlds for readers hungry for enchantment and escape.

Dulac, a master of atmosphere, was celebrated for his ability to translate the uncanny and the magical into visual form. Works like this were commissioned for deluxe editions, often as gifts or prized possessions, and they reflect both the anxieties and the longings of a Europe on the brink of profound change. Little is recorded about the individual journey of this particular image, but its presence in the Harvard collection today is a testament to the lasting power of illustration to haunt and delight.

Let your gaze linger on the dreamer’s face, and consider what visions might be passing behind those closed eyes.