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Sixteen Illustrations of Subjects from Kipling's "Jungle Book"
London: Macmillan & Co., Limited, 1903. Item #06188
“Beauty That Hath Terror in It”
The Detmold Brothers’ Sublime and Unsettling Vision of The Jungle Book
KIPLING, Rudyard. DETMOLD, Maurice & Edward J., illustrators. Sixteen Illustrations of Subjects from Kipling's "Jungle Book" by Messrs. Maurice & Edward Detmold. London: Macmillan & Co., Limited, 1903.
First edition. Folio (21 3/8 x 15 1/2 inches; 543 x 394 mm.). Title page, contents leaf and sixteen fine colored prints tipped onto white board with gray window mounts, each with a cover sheet providing the title and a short extract from the text. Title-page and list of illustrations expertly repaired at fold, second plate description with short marginal tear, some light foxing to text and mounts only - the plates clean and fresh.
Housed in the publisher's green cloth portfolio, front cover lettered and with illustration in gilt, one of two original green silk ties. An excellent example of the Detmold's finest work.
Rendered in the rich colors characteristic of the Detmolds' artwork, the plates in this portfolio far surpass the later small book edition published five years later, whose reproductions appear comparatively muted. Considered among the finest book illustrations of all time, R. Dalby notes: "These paintings were praised for their realistic detail and decorative arrangement," while Diana Johnson intriguingly observes: "The end result of this incongruous joining together of the quasi-scientific and the ornamental is an image which is both fanciful and often rather disturbing."
Published when the Detmold twins were only twenty years old, this portfolio was their final collaboration before Maurice's tragic suicide in 1908. Because the illustrations closely resemble original artwork when framed, many individual plates were separated from their sets, making a complete portfolio a rare find today.
The sixteen plates in Sixteen Illustrations of Subjects from Kipling’s Jungle Book represent the Detmold brothers at the absolute height of their early powers, combining natural history accuracy with a highly personal, imaginative symbolism. Executed when Maurice Detmold and Edward J. Detmold were only twenty, the images reveal an astonishing maturity of design, color harmony, and psychological insight.
Across the series, animals are rendered with an almost zoological precision - musculature, fur, scale, and movement observed with scientific care - yet the compositions are unmistakably poetic and stylized. Wolves stand with hieratic gravity; panthers and tigers possess an elegance that borders on the mythic; serpents coil with hypnotic inevitability.
These are not merely illustrations of stories by Rudyard Kipling, but visual interpretations that deepen and at times darken the emotional tenor of the text.
Several plates focus on Mowgli himself, depicted as a lithe, vulnerable yet resolute figure, often isolated against vast, spare landscapes. His nudity is treated without sentimentality: the Detmolds emphasize his animal belonging rather than childhood innocence, reinforcing the central tension of The Jungle Book - the precarious boundary between human and beast. In scenes with Bagheera, Baloo, and Akela, the animals are endowed with a quiet authority, their gazes expressive and morally charged, suggesting intellect and memory rather than simple instinct.
The Monkey People, shown amid cold stone lairs and architectural fragments, are among the most unsettling inventions in the set: simian forms twisted into almost grotesque attitudes, animated by restless, purposeless energy. By contrast, the great predators - Shere Khan especially - are portrayed with a terrible beauty: powerful, controlled, and ominously calm, embodying what the Manchester Guardian aptly described as “that beauty which hath terror in it.”
Color plays a central role throughout. The Detmolds employ a restrained but sumptuous palette - burnished browns, smoky grays, deep greens, and muted ochres - heightened by subtle tonal transitions rather than overt brilliance. This lends the plates a painterly richness and a unity of mood that far surpasses the later reduced-format book edition, whose reproductions inevitably dull these effects.
Decorative framing, carefully balanced negative space, and rhythmic patterning of foliage, fur, and stone give each composition an architectural coherence. The result is a body of work that stands apart from conventional Edwardian illustration: neither merely narrative nor purely ornamental, but a rare fusion of naturalism, symbolism, and psychological depth.
Taken as a whole, the portfolio reads as a visual cycle - grave, hypnotic, and occasionally disturbing -confirming the contemporary judgment that the Detmolds “prevent their work from ever sinking to the level of mere illustration.”
Complete portfolios are now scarce, as many plates were long ago removed for framing, making intact examples such as this especially prized.
A report on the publication in the New York Times for 5 December 1903 stated that "the edition is strictly limited to 500 copies for England and America". This portfolio is a magnificent presentation of the Detmold brothers' celebrated book illustrations. Reviewing the London exhibition of the original artwork, the Manchester Guardian commented that the Detmolds "are able to prevent their work from ever sinking to the level of mere illustration". The reviewer enthused that "the drawing of the Monkey People in the Cold Lairs who 'were not thinking of Mowgli's friends at all' is full of character, subtle observation, and invention. The figure of Bagheera in 'Mowgli and the Red Flower' has something of that beauty which hath terror in it. Baloo and Nag, Kaa and Akela the lone wolf are brought before our eyes in a singularly convincing and engaging form". Manchester Guardian, 5 November 1903.
Price: $5,000.00