The Little Grey Mouse popular - original watercolour

Original watercolour featuring French fairy tale "The Grey Little Mouse".

Painted on Fabriano watercolour paper 100% cotton

The painting measures 23x30 cm or 9/12 inch and is sent in a protective plastic sleeve with a sturdy cardboard.

The painting is NOT framed NOR matted.

The price includes shipping per UPS, tracking number will be provided.

The Little Grey Mouse

"The Little Grey Mouse" is a fairy tale written by Sophie de Ségur, who was born in Russia but lived in France in the 19th century.

The story is about a girl, Rosalie, who lives alone with her father in a majestic palace. She is not allowed to leave the place, nor to have contacts with anyone except for her own father.

One day, while playing in the garden, Rosalie hears someone crying inside a hut. The hut is closed but someone inside is crying for help. She tells her father about that but her father dismisses her and her curiosity grows and grows until one day she steals the hut key from her father and frees the creature trapped in it: a grey little mouse.

The mouse is in reality the fairy Detestable who is taking revenge on Rosalie's father (the genius Prudent) for not having invited her to his marriage. She had Prudent's wife killed after the birth of their daughter and was about to endow Rosalie with all the passions and vices of the world when the genius stopped her. Unfortunately the fairy Detestable managed to endow Rosalie with a curiosity sufficient to make her wretched and to subject her entirely to her power at fifteen years of age. The genius, with the aid of the Queen of the Fairies (who in the meantime punished the fairy Detestable by turning her into a mouse) counter-balanced this fatal influence and decided that the girl should not fall under the power at fifteen years of age, unless she yielded three times to her idle curiosity.

The mouse kidnaps Rosalie and they start to travel the popular world, in the hope that Rosalie yields to her curiosity other two times.

One day the girl meets Prince Gracious, who is our hunting in the woods. He falls immediately in love with her and decides to take her to his palace and marry. During a promenade in the garden Rosalie sees a garden house with a big tree inside enveloped by a cloth. It is Rosalie's wedding present and she shall not see it before her 15th birthday, which will be in a couple of days. Rosalie yields to her curiosity and one evening she cuts the cloth: in front of her appears a wonderful tree with a coral trunk and golden fruits. This is, however, the second time she yields to her curiosity. One more time and both her and her father will be cursed.

She promises herself she will not yield to her curiosity till she turns fifteen, when an old woman gives her a casket, asking her to watch over it till she comes back. Rosalie, tempted by the fairy Detestable, is curious to see what it hides inside but she resists to temptation. She finally turns fifteen and both her and her father are freed and she marries Prince Gracious.