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True Origin of Gandalf

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True Origin of Gandalf

Postby Guest » July 9th, 2005, 8:14 pm

Does anyone recognise this fellow...?

Image

From Sotherby's auction house web site:

The hitherto lost original painting that was the inspiration for Tolkien’s Gandalf. Given by the artist to the present owner, this important Yolkien item has been in private hands for over sixty years.

In his 1977 biography, Humphrey Carpenter records details of Tolkien’s holiday in Switzerland immediately after leaving King Edward's school in 1911:

Before setting off on the return journey to England, Tolkien bought some picture postcards. Among them was a reproduction of a painting by a German artist, J. Madelener [sic]. It is called Der Berggeist, the mountain spirit, and it shows an old man sitting on a rock under a pine tree. He has a white beard and wears a wide-brimmed round hat and a long cloak. He is talking to a white fawn that is nuzzling his upturned hands, and he has a humorous but compassionate expression; there is a glimpse of rocky mountains in the distance. Tolkien preserved this postcard carefully, and long afterwards he wrote on the paper cover in which he kept it: ‘Origin of Gandalf’.

Full article

(giving credit where it is due, I learnt about the above via the Tolkien Society.org web site)

MJM
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