Jan Marcin Szancer (1902 Kraków-1973 Warsaw), Illustration to "The Nutcracker."

watercolor, paper, 50.5 × 36 cm
Signed p. d.: "jms"

Illustration used in Chapter XIII - "Capital" of "The Nutcracker", Warsaw 1957, illustrated on p. 69 and in the 1989 edition III on p. 39.

"The Nutcracker clapped his hands again. The Lake of Roses began to murmur louder, the waves rose higher, and a shell-shaped boat appeared in the distance, made of nothing but expensive stones, as colorful and bright as the sun. The boat, pulled by golden dolphins, was approaching the place where Clara and the Nutcracker stood. Twelve little shapely boys, decked out in caps and aprons made of hummingbird feathers, jumped ashore.

Slipping lightly on the surface of the waves, they carried first the girl and then her guide to the boat, which immediately bounced off the shore.

Ah, how wonderful it was to sail like this in a shell boat on the rose-colored waves, among the zephyrs! Dolphins with golden scales raised their nostrils from time to time and threw out of them high crystal streams, which circled arcs in the air sparkling with a thousand fires, and when they hit the surface of the lake, one could hear the singing of pure silver voices in their splash:

Who floats on the soft cushions?
It's a fairy.
The midges make: pss....
Fish do: shh....
Swans: tra-ra,
And the birds: la-la.
Silver waves,
Swim in the dale,
Swim the chyze,
Lower, higher!
The young fairy has arrived,
Let the rosy water hum."

E. T. A. Hoffmann, "The Nutcracker," Chapter XIII, Capital, Warsaw 1957, pp. 67-68