Dancing Fairies (Älvalek), by August Malmström (1866)

Älvalek — Dancing Fairies — painted by the Swedish artist August Malmström in 1866. Under a rising moon, a ring of elves sweeps hand in hand across a still river meadow, one bending to the water to catch her own reflection. The mist becomes elves and the elves become mist — the painting reads either as a romantic moonlit landscape or as a vision of Norse folklore, depending on how you look.

The álfar — elves — run back through the Eddas to the oldest layers of Norse belief, surviving in Scandinavian folklore as the huldufólk, the hidden people: beautiful young women living wild in the hills, woods, and stone mounds. In Romantic art they appear fair-haired and white-clad, lovely but dangerous when offended. Malmström drew on exactly that tradition, and Älvalek became his most famous work. The original oil-on-canvas was owned by King Carl XV until 1872 and now hangs in the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm. A museum-grade reproduction on gallery canvas, hand-stretched and ready to hang.

Details:
1.25" (3.18 cm) thick poly-cotton blend canvas — 10.15 oz/yd² (344 g/m²) — Fade-resistant — Hand-stretched over solid wood stretcher bars — Mounting brackets included — Sourced from the US, Canada, Europe, UK, or Australia