3-021-016 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

"The Magic Mirror", by C. Cattermole, exhibition of the Institute of Painters in Water-Colours, 1868. Engraving of a drawing. 'Visits to the Necromancer, Queen Elizabeth consulting her "Secret Intelligencer," Dr. Lee [Dee?], and the like subjects, are rather favourite themes with our painters just now...In this instance the elder of the two visitors to the magician, in her enormous ruff and fardingale, may without much improbability be taken for Queen Bess herself; and she inspects the wonders of the mirror with something of Royal collectedness not unworthy of that brave lioness. The emotion of her younger companion is, however, much less under control. Is it simply superstitious dread that makes her start at the apparition evoked within the mystic frame; or is some other chord touched by the image of that gallant knight riding so triumphantly amidst general acclamation? Anyhow, the magician could scarcely have called up a figure better adapted to interest a couple of ladies, though one is almost beyond the years usually deemed susceptible of romance - and on that account, perhaps, does not, as we have already hinted, so entirely lose her self-possession'. From "Illustrated London News", 1868.