Eronen, Matti :: Gilberto Ugolini

The Ring of Three Serpents (Carl Barks' Unpainted Disney Duck Oilpainting)

Artists: Carl Barks (Penciller) , Gilberto Ugolini (Painter)

1 Comment - 887 Views - 1 Like

The Ring of Three Serpents (Carl Barks' Unpainted Disney Duck Oilpainting) Comic Art

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Additional Images:

Barks finished pencil artwork for the painting

Barks' original cover for Mummy's Ring (1983) with Gilberto's painting

Next Item:
"The Escape from the Realm of the Gilded Man" based on Carl Barks' pencil drawing

Artwork Details

Title:	The Ring of Three Serpents (Carl Barks' Unpainted Disney Duck Oilpainting)
Artist:	Carl Barks (Penciller)
Artist:	Gilberto Ugolini (Painter)
Media Type:	Paint - Acrylic
Art Type:	Recreation
For Sale Status:	NFS
Views:	887
Likes on CAF:	1 2
Comments:	1
Added to Site:	7/29/2022
Comic Art Archive:

Description

This is another joint project we made together, Gilberto painted and I tried to find out certain details, colors, and other things needing to remember when trying to do a painting in the way "how Unca Carl would have done it" ;-)
I hope you like the end result! :-)
At least we enjoyed a lot making this 20"x16" painting happen.
Barks didn't gave any name for it, so we had a freedom to select it, I feel not far away how Barks would have named it...

The starting point was, and we need to remember, that it looks like there was only 2 Disney Duck oils with finished pencil lines which Barks never painted. The first one we made earlier, please check it here in CAF by clicking Gilberto's name. And that's all folks! No more! We haven't found any Barks' finished pencil artwork with solid lines. We felt we need to make this tribute to Barks and present for his fans this "what if" case.

In the additional photo is presented Barks' carefully-rendered pencil artwork which we used for the linework of the painting.

OK, then a bit longer story about the background of this painting, mostly now copy-pasted from Carl Barks Library Vol I (1984).

Barks was thinking with Another Rainbow a possibility to produce a lithograph in the 1980s, but the project was put aside at that time. Nothing more was done with drawings until the time for The Carl Barks Library to reprint "The�Mummy's�Ring".
The original artwork for the CBL Vol I set is presented here:
https://www.comicartfans.com/GalleryPiece.asp?Piece=1840571

Originally it had thus begun as much wider scene, with the status of two Egyptian deities prominent in the foreground. To make the sketch, Barks consulted a book of Egyptian mythology and chose gods appropriate to the themes of "Mummy's�Ring". Khnum, the ram-headed figure on the left, was an ancient god of the first cataract of the Nile, the river which dominates Donald's adventure. Legend has it that Khnum fashioned the body and soul of Queen Hat-shepsut, whose mortuary temple served as a model for the Bey's palace in the comic book. As water god, he was often represented holding out his hands to let the water flow of them. Barks gave the statue clenched fists to make it mote threatening in the shadowy museum.
Taueret, the hippopotamus goddess on the right, also was associated with Hat-shepsut, at whose birth she is said to have presided. Legend casts her as protectress of the dead on their rebirth in the Other World, so it is fitting that she should be on hand to watch Barks'�mummy�rise from the case. Taueret had temples at Thebes and Deir e-Bahri, the site of Hat-shepsut's tomb.

The original idea was for the scene to show something exciting that really could have happened in the story, even though it was not shown. What Barks conceived could have occurred between the first and second panels of the fourth page of the story. In a 1983 interview, Barks commented that the drawing "has a great deal out of different Egyptian books I have accumulated, and out of National Geographic, which still has some of the very best reference material on Egypt anyplace".

Barks explained that it "was intended as 16-inch by 20-inch horizontal painting. When it was decided to use that subject for the cover of the CBL Vol I, I just took a vertical section out of the middle of the composition, and there was all that was needed". In the process, Barks removed the figures of Khnum and Taueret, but the sketch remains as a testament to his renewed research in Egyptology over thirty years of the "The�Mummy's�Ring" was first published.

The writers of the article, Thomas Andrae and Geoffrey Blum then finished: "At the time of publication of this set of the Library, no decision has yet been made as to whether or not Barks will eventually render this concept as a full-sized oil."

Now, 38 years after publishing this article we can finally enjoy how Barks' oilpainting might have looked. We have tried to follow Barks' methods here, by checking colors from Cairo Museum from NGs and using google of course.
However, there is also John Garwin's version from the very same Barks' pencil artwork, with small differences, google it ;-)

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About the Owner

	Matti Eronen
Joined:	March 2017
Last Login:	September 2025
Website:	http://Illusi0n.com
Country:	FINLAND
On CAF:	Artworks Commented On Liked Art Site Activity on CAF

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Comments on this Artwork

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Monty B
Member Since 2006

1 - Posted on 7/29/2022

Great painting and sleuthing on your part, Matti... ;-))

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