All her pleasure would consist of looking at the peacock and making her dog dance, 2024

The King of the Peacocks is a French fairy tale written by Madame d’Aulnoy (Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, Baroness d’Aulnoy)in the 1600s. I found the story in a book given to my mother by her grandmother in the 1940s. In the tale, a princess declares she will only marry the King of the Peacocks after she hears for the first time that the birds were sometimes killed for food. The wallpaper is based on a design by Walter Crane (1904) for Jeffrey & Co. The bird is sitting on the arm of a lounge chair.