(Walt Disney Studios, 1959) Original panoramic concept painting by Eyvind Earle for Sleeping Beauty, which depicts the sorceress Maleficent tormenting a prisoner in the dungeon of her castle. The vividly rendered scene serves as an exploratory dungeon concept, a visualization of Maleficent’s cruelty and dominion that, despite going unused in the film’s final product, offers a rarely seen sample of Earle at his darkest. The dungeon is shown in eerie hues of blue and gray, its immense, impenetrable space jutting with large and ill-shapen columns and somber, sickly shoots of vine and vegetation, elements that enclose on the scene’s central abomination. At the base of a long staircase is Maleficent, leaning with raised arms and scepter over a stone cauldron, and below this, upon the floor opens a rectangular pit and the emerging specter of a long-tortured captive. Accomplished in gouache on 16.75 x 6 artist's board, signed in the lower right corner in light blue paint, “Eyvind Earle.” In fine condition, with tack holes to corners. Disney artist Eyvind Earle was Sleeping Beauty's production designer, and Disney gave him a significant amount of freedom in designing the settings and selecting colors for the film. Earle also painted the majority of the backgrounds himself, and his stylistic influence is readily apparent in the final product. A terrific depiction of the ‘Mistress of All Evil’ at her most unforgiving.
