A young prince in a red coat and a white turban with a red plume rides a pale gray horse with a flame-colored mane through banks of moonlit cloud. His pale cloak billows out behind him, a full moon glows at upper left, and the sky deepens from gray-green to violet-blue. Edmund Dulac painted it for The Story of the Magic Horse in Stories from the Arabian Nights, retold by Laurence Housman. An Indian sage brings the King of Persia a horse of ivory and ebony that can fly, and Prince Firouz Schah rides off on it before learning how to steer.

When he finds a small peg under the mane, the horse begins to descend: daylight fades, he passes from sunset into darkness, and he lands on the roof of a palace, where his adventure with a princess begins. The V&A calls The Arabian Nights, published in 1907, Dulac's first major work of illustration, and notes his love of Persian miniatures, with their flat planes and pattern. His debut came just as four-color process blocks began printing color more faithfully, and it opened a run of Christmas gift books for Hodder & Stoughton that lasted until 1939. The book was first published in London by Hodder & Stoughton in 1907.