“The Young King of the Black Isles” by Maxfield Parrish

“The Young King of the Black Isles”

This gorgeous oil on canvas painting is by the American illustrator, Maxfield Parrish, and is titled “The Young King of the Black Isles”, based after the short story of the same name. It was created in 1906 and served as the frontispiece to Collier’s Arabian Nights VIII, published in 1907.

In this piece, Parrish depicts a young king who was being held prisoner in his own hall by his very own wife after the king struck down her lover in the woods. In payback, the young queen turned the king’s lower body into stone, destroyed his capital, and as the king relates, “she comes every day, and gives me over my naked shoulders a hundred lashes with a whip until I am covered with blood. When she has finished this part of my punishment, she throws over me a coarse stuff of goat’s hair, and over that this robe of brocade, not to honor, but to mock me”. Parrish illustrated the following line: “When he came to this part of his narrative, the young king could not restrain his tears; and the sultan was himself so affected by the relation, that he could not find utterance for any words of consolation.” In the story, the sultan avenges the young king, before making him his heir.

He illustrated the Arabian Nights early in his career and it garnered him much respectability in the art and literary worlds. This book was one of the first commissioned works in which lithograph prints of Parrish’s illustrations became available for purchase. The earliest lithograph of “The Young King of the Black Isles” for public purchase dates to 1910. These prints made his art more easily accessible to a wider audience. Parrish’s unique method of glazing made his pieces more luminous and added to the fantastical nature of his illustrations.

As an interesting note, the 1995 album cover to Enya’s ‘Memory of Trees’ is based on this painting. Parrish’s works are still widely known and referenced in pop culture today.

For those interested, the story of “The Young King of the Black Isles” goes like this:

A young king’s wife was cheating on her husband with a slave paramour. When the king found out, he attacked the slave, almost nearly killing him. The king’s wife was also an enchantress, and she put a spell on her lover to keep him alive. In revenge, she cast a spell on her king husband, making him half man and half marble, and turned his fishing kingdom into a desert and lake. Every day she would beat her husband with a whip, who could not move quickly enough to escape her, before visiting her paramour who was still just holding onto life. When the young king was telling his sad story to a sultan, he “could not restrain his tears”.

In his mercy, the sultan decided to help the young king and the two developed a plan. The sultan visited the wounded slave and killed him with a sword. He then lay down in the slave’s place. After the enchantress beat her king husband, she went to visit her wounded lover, who at this point, was not yet able to speak.

The sultan spoke in the Ethiopian accent of the slave, saying he couldn’t rest because of the daily cries of her husband. The enchantress was overjoyed and asked what her lover wished. He said he wished that the king was returned to his proper form, which she immediately did.

Afterwards, she asked what else her lover wanted. The sultan, speaking as the slave, said that he wanted the land to be turned back into what it was, which she immediately did. She returned again to whom she thought was her lover. At that moment, the sultan jumped out from the bed and cut the woman in two.

The sultan told the king that he was now free and that his kingdom was returned to normal. The sultan then, after having no heir, made the young king his heir and the two lived happily until the end of their days.

“The Young King of the Black Isles” is currently in the private collection of Madonna Ciccone, the singer otherwise known as Madonna.

For more on Maxfield Parrish, please visit his short biography here.

You can find more artists to learn about here.