The Legend Of The Orange Princess

Formally profiled figures in glowing color give an air of Eastern dignity and jungle luxuriance to a traditional fairy tale with a twist: the princess is an orange. Emerging from her peeling each evening at sunset, she becomes a lovely maiden and is predictably espied, then married, by a prince. They enjoy "many years" of happy nights which end when "each morning, before the sun rose, she returned to the orange." One night, however, the prince lies ill in the jungle and the princess, preoccupied with healing him, exposes herself to the rising sun -- and disappears. But "on the spot where she had vanished, there now stood an orange tree, glowing and shimmering in the sun." The tale's romantic theme is unexceptional, but Gobhai's highly flavored pictures make the most of the variations.