The Face of Wretched Man - Edmund Dulac

An evocative 1909 watercolour illustration by Edmund Dulac for The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, capturing a quiet, sombre moment in a rustic interior.

This illustration by Edmund Dulac appears in his 1909 edition of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Dulac, a prominent figure in the early twentieth-century British publishing scene, produced these plates during a period when gift books with tipped-in colour illustrations were highly sought after by collectors. His approach to the Rubaiyat reflects a fascination with Persian aesthetics, filtered through the stylistic conventions of European illustration.

The scene depicts a sombre interior, likely a tent or humble dwelling, where an elderly man attends to a reclining woman. Dulac employs a muted palette of earthy browns, dusty pinks, and soft ochres to establish the mood. The composition relies on the contrast between the stillness of the woman and the hunched, concerned posture of the man. His use of watercolour allows for subtle gradations of tone, particularly in the drapery of the clothing and the textures of the woven baskets surrounding the figures.

Dulac was known for his ability to synthesise diverse visual influences. In this work, the influence of Persian miniature painting is visible in the treatment of the figures and the flattened perspective of the interior space. However, the modelling of the faces and the soft handling of the light remain firmly rooted in the Western tradition of book illustration. The work captures a moment of quiet gravity, typical of the melancholic and philosophical themes found within the Rubaiyat. The attention to detail, from the small mortar and pestle in the foreground to the folds of the fabric, demonstrates the technical precision that defined Dulac's career as a book illustrator. This print offers a glimpse into the collaborative relationship between text and image that characterised the high-quality publishing standards of the Edwardian era.