Hansel put out a knuckle-bone, and the old Woman, whose eyes were dim, could not see, and thought it was his finger 1920

Arthur Rackham made this pen and ink drawing for a 1909 illustrated version of Grimms' Fairy Tales. Rackham was a leading figure in the golden age of British book illustration, a period shaped by new printing technologies that allowed for the wide circulation of art in books and magazines. Rackham here illustrates the moment when Hansel tricks the witch by offering her a bone instead of his finger, thus avoiding being eaten. Fairy tales were promoted in the late 19th and early 20th century by educational reformers who considered them important for the moral development of children. But we can see the story in this image also speaks to the very real precarity of childhood at the time, when many children were malnourished and subject to exploitation. To understand the continued appeal of these kinds of images, we might consider its relation to earlier traditions of folk art, but also its ability to speak to the fears and anxieties of its own time.