Lot Essay
The Fisherman was originally painted as the cover design for Charles Scribner's Sons' The Arabian Nights, Their Best-Known Tales, which was published in 1909. A few years earlier, Parrish had painted twelve works for Collier's magazine depicting scenes from The Arabian Nights. According to Coy Ludwig, "Charles Scribner's Sons, with whom Parrish had discussed the possibility of illustrating The Arabian Nights as early as 1904, purchased the book rights for the series from Collier's. Edited for juvenile readers by Nora A. Smith and Kate Douglas Wiggin, the author of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, Scribner's 1909 edition of The Arabian Nights was considerably more subdued than earlier translations of the tales." (Maxfield Parrish, New York, 1973, p. 32) In addition to the twelve works that he had already painted for Collier's, Parrish produced works for the cover, endpapers and title page of the Scribner's edition of The Arabian Nights including The Fisherman.