Illustrations for the fairy tale Beauty and the Beast all seem to highlight the same moment, as portrayed here. The two are seated together, the beast pledging his devotion, while Beauty looks away, pleased but ambivalent. This one, using the palette and style of the 1960s, shows the encounter in slightly abstracted form, with a Siamese cat sitting on Beauty’s lap, and the Beast a sort of beaked wild boar/unicorn/donkey/porcupine creature.
