Eric Stalner, Solveig Spies her Hunters (Solveig 1, 1996)

An exquisite watercolour by Eric Stalner of his beautiful medieval creation and, as you can see, finer and more revealing than the coloured cover (additional image) of this hard to find b&w limited edition Romantic booklet.

Solveig is the feisty hero who has escaped the King, her father, that she despises for raping her mother. He has sent his minion hunters to kill or capture her. The setting depicted is a sacred pool where she has stripped off to bathe after a long ride. She manages to thwart their attempts to seize her without dressing - somehow more powerful and certainly more agile than armour for her (and delightful for the artist's viewers) in this fervent dramatic scene. How does she do it? As can be seen from the additional images, Solveig takes out the first hunter with a rock and then Bjorn the dwarf turns up to dispose of the next two but spares the leader, who has the hopeless hots for her, after an appeal by Solveig. So, after vanguishing the foe, she dresses and the winners ride off into the sunset for further adventure together. Inspiring draughtsmanship from Stalner in his delightful fairy story.

This watercolour is an extra illustration relating to events between pages 3 and 4.
Masterful subtleties here include the elongated tree branch, somewhat phallic in shape, which points down towards our heroine's golden mound. She has just drawn her sword from the scabard hung from it and so Stalner immortalises another Sword and Saucy graphic of high of deadly vulnerability.(25x32.5cm)