The Slippers of Cinderella

Aubrey Beardsley

The Slippers of Cinderella

Ink and watercolor over pencil on paper,

[1894].

Signs of an artistic foot fetish were everywhere in Beardsley’s work. Some of the feet were hooflike and scarcely human; others were impossibly tiny and shod in narrow, pointed shoes. Here, the subject’s right foot floating in undifferentiated black space becomes a focal point, as do her fingers, positioned in a way to suggest female genitalia. Beardsley, who seemed averse to happy endings, intended this as an illustration for a new version of the Cinderella story in which the glass slippers—ground up and fed to the unsuspecting heroine—killed her. What is happy, however, is the artist’s command of color. While Beardsley was a pioneer in deploying black-and-white lines and spaces on paper, he could also use bold reds to great effect. Nonetheless, the feather sticking out of Cinderella’s head, turning her into a giant ink bottle, reminds viewers that his preferred instruments were not brushes, but pens.

From the Mark Samuels Lasner Collection, University of Delaware Library, Museums and Press