# The Queen of Sheba

- By: Edmund Dulac (British, 1882–1953)
- Date: 1911
- Medium: Pen and brown ink, watercolor, and gouache, with graphite and color wax crayon, on artist’s drawing board
- Classification: Drawing
- Dimensions: Sheet: 31.6 x 25.4 cm (12 7/16 x 10 in.)
- Culture: England, 20th century
- Credit line: Bequest of James Parmelee
- Museum: [Cleveland Museum of Art](https://clevelandart.org/art/1940.738)
- Rights: [Public domain (CC0)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1940.738/1940.738_web.jpg
- Who can see it: Teens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

A celebrated artist of the golden age of British book illustration, the French-born Edmund Dulac was inspired by Persian miniatures and manuscript illustration. This watercolor was one of a series of four scenes painted to accompany a poem by André Dumas, Figures of the Orient. Dulac depicted legendary enchantresses of the East: Circe, Salome, Scheherazade, and here, the Queen of Sheba. Aloft a camel, the dark-haired beauty languorously surveys the arid landscape as she and her entourage approach the Holy Land. Vibrant silks spill out of the queen’s gold and lapis howdah, a veritable mosaic of texture and pattern.