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"While I concede Tufail 's thesis (2003) that Holiday received his instructions from Carroll and created his illustrations to reflect Carroll's cryptic messages and allusions, I contend that the interpretations given to the words we know so well by so many illustrators over a period in excess of 130 years continue to keep the Snark alive. Furthermore, it is my personal belief that Holiday managed to slip in a few interpretations of his own even though Carroll approved of the end result."
(Doug Howick: The Hiihijig of the Bijtcheb, Knight Letter #28, Summer 2009)

The comparison shows Henry Holiday's illustration (1876) to the front cover of Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark compared to the Ditchley Portrait (a gift from Sir Henry Lee to Queen Elizabeth I, c. 1592) by Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger.

Watch the sail of the ship and the queen's "sail".

2011-12-03: 4735×3740

[center]: Henry Holiday's backcover illustration (1876) to Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark.

[upper left]: Allegorical English School painting (ca. 1610) of Queen Elizabeth I at Old Age with allegory of Death and Father Time.

[lower left]: Allegorical English School painting (ca. 1610) as above: Mirror view, converted to black&white (in order to focus on shapes).

[right]: Allegorical English School painting (ca. 1610) as above: Some segments rearranged in an attempt to understand Henry Holiday's way to quote from this painting. Into the large image on the right side I inserted the mirror view of the Bellman's face (from the front cover of Carroll's poem).

The pictorial quotations by Henry Holiday in his illustrations may help to interpret The Hunting of the Snark. I think, Holiday understood Carroll well. And Carroll seemingly got afraid a bit that his poem was too dark: "And if I have written anything to add to those stores of innocent and healthy amusement that are laid up in books for the children I love so well, it is surely something I may hope to look back upon without shame and sorrow (as how much of life must then be recalled!) when my turn comes to walk through the valley of shadows." (Carroll's Easter Greeting, 1876)

(Holiday's illustration also is available in a scaleable format for posters: SVG and PDF.)

In Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark, the intertextuality of the poem is paralleled by the interpictoriality of Henry Holiday's illustrations: Here Henry Holiday reinterprets Marcus Gheeraerts I+II

Since 2007 I am using an illustration by Henry Holiday for work. In December 2008 I accidentally discovered the first source from which Henry Holiday cited shapes and concepts for his illustrations to C. L. Dodgson's (aka Lewis Carroll's) The Hunting of the Snark (1876). In the following two years I made several more discoveries.

The image above shows Henry Holiday's illustration to the chapter The Banker's Fate. (A small part of the left side has been removed in order to achieve a 4:3 ratio. The largest size is 5696 x 4352 pixels.) To Holiday's illustration I added images from which, in my opinion, he had borrowed shapes and concepts:

(1) Under the Banker's arm:
• Horizontally compressed segment of The Image Breakers (1566-1568) aka Allegory of Iconoclasm, an etching by Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder (British Museum, Dept. of Print and Drawings, 1933.1.1..3, see also Edward Hodnett: Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder, Utrecht 1971, pp. 25-29). I mirrored the "nose" about a horizontal axis (yellow frame).

(2) Under the Beaver's paw (mirror views):
• [top]: Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger: Catherine Killigrew, Lady Jermyn (1614)
• [bottom]: Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger: Mary Throckmorton, Lady Scudamore (1615)

Song on YouTube: Bajka - The Banker's Fate

Formerly, the title was "Paradise Snarked & Marked". But Jean-Michel Frodon's comment is so much better! (He also explained quite well, what this image is about.)

The comparison shows illustrations by Gustave Doré (to John Milton's Paradise Lost, Book VI, 1866) and by Henry Holiday (to The Hunting of the Snark, 1876).

High resolution: 4440 x 3000. There also is an image without the blueish resemblance indication.

From The Hunting of the Snark, Fit the 5th, The Beaver's Lesson:

301    They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care;
302        They pursued it with forks and hope;
303    They threatened its life with a railway-share;
304        They charmed it with smiles and soap.

305    Then the Butcher contrived an ingenious plan
306        For making a separate sally;
307    And had fixed on a spot unfrequented by man,
308        A dismal and desolate valley.

309    But the very same plan to the Beaver occurred:
310        It had chosen the very same place:
311    Yet neither betrayed, by a sign or a word,
312        The disgust that appeared in his face.

313    Each thought he was thinking of nothing but "Snark"
314        And the glorious work of the day;
315    And each tried to pretend that he did not remark
316        That the other was going that way.

317    But the valley grew narrow and narrower still,
318        And the evening got darker and colder,
319    Till (merely from nervousness, not from goodwill)
320        They marched along shoulder to shoulder.

The two images also walk along well together. The comparison is a good example for how Holiday in many of his references to other images strengthened the link between an illustration and the pictures from which he quoted graphical elements: The resemblance of the 6 matching patterns (highlighted using notes 1 to 6) may be more or less disputable for each single match, but the topological relation between the elements quoted (in a subtle and yet noticeable manner) by Holiday is similar in both pictures.

I made this comparison in 2009 based on original 19th century prints.

[left]: Henry Holiday (37): Depiction of the Baker's visit to his uncle (1876) in Lewis Carroll's "The Hunting of the Snark" (engraved by Joseph Swain). Outside of the window are some of the Baker's 42 boxes.

[right top]: John Everett Millais (21): Christ in the House of His Parents (1850).

[right bottom]: Anonymous: Edward VI and the Pope, An Allegory of Reformation, mirrored view (16th century). Henry VIII is on the right side (original: left). Iconoclasm depicted in the window. Under the window 2nd from left is Thomas Cranmer who wrote the 42 Articles in 1552.
Update 2010-12-24: In The King's Bedpost: Reformation and Iconography in a Tudor Group Portrait (1994, p. 72), Margaret Aston compares the iconoclastic scene to prints depicting the destruction of the Tower of Babel (Philip Galle after Maarten van Heemskerck, 1567). And from her book I learned, that this is not a "window". It is an inset.

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Update 2010-11-19: NPG 4165 Edward VI and the Pope was, until 1874, the property of Thomas Green, Esq., of Ipswich and Upper Wimpole Street, a collection 'Formed by himself and his Family during the last Century and early Part of the present Century' (Roy C. Strong: Tudor and Jacobean Portraits, 1969, p.345). Thus, when Millais' Christ in the House of His Parents ('The Carpenter's Shop') was painted in 1849-1850, the 16th century painting was part of a private collection. It was sold by Christie's 20 March 1874 (lot 9) to a buyer unknown to me, that is, when Holiday started with his illustrations to The Hunting of the Snark.

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2011-11-27: Set for Art Recipes group: www.flickr.com/photos/bonnetmaker/sets/72157624303810154/. The set is a subset of the set The Hunting of the Snark. That set (and the related sets) could show you some "recipes" on how artists construct pictorial conundrums by using pictorial quotes from other works of art.

Interestingly, in 2010 Mahendra Singh did his Snark illustrations using the same recipe - initially without knowing about my research on Holiday's illustrations. (He probaby found a very appropriate way to comment on my playful Snark research.)