3-021-002 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

"Red Riding Hood", by Mrs. Anderson, in the exhibition of the Society of British Artists, 1868. Engraving of a painting. '...the cunning and sanguinary wolf, having found from his cautious inquiries that no immediate danger to himself is to be apprehended, proceeds to commit the dire atrocity which forms the dreadful catastrophe of the story...however,...there is no reason for dreading so terrible a finale...Mrs. Anderson has avoided with great ingenuity harrowing our feelings so ruthlessly. Here is the hide of no wolf, but of a fox...Reynard has long ago been fairly run to the death or foully...trapped: the head is stuffed; the skin has been mounted as a rug or mat. So our little darling, being just of the age to have her head full of nursery rhymes, dresses herself in character with her red, hooded cloak and basket, to...enact Red Riding Hood with a perfectly harmless fox. But, as the fox's skin lay too flat to satisfy her vivid imagination, she must needs overturn the contents of the waste-paper basket on the floor and give Master Fox his due stature by placing his head on its inverted end. A very pretty fancy this, assuredly, and all the more acceptable coming from a lady, and realised...with unmistakable ability'. From "Illustrated London News", 1868.