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Picture of the day

Princess Ida is a comic opera with music by Arthur Sullivan and a libretto by W. S. Gilbert. First performed at the Savoy Theatre on 5 January 1884, the piece involves Prince Hilarion and his two friends sneaking into a women's college, disguised as women, to woo Princess Ida, to whom he was wed in infancy. Ida, a feminist, has rejected all mankind, and when Hilarion's identity is accidentally revealed, a battle of the sexes ensues.

This illustration is from the 1909 printing of Savoy Operas, a illustrated compilation of four of the Gilbert and Sullivan works. The illustration depicts Hilarion, in disguise as a woman, trying to convince Ida to look on his true self more kindly:

"If it be well to droop and pine and mope,
To sigh, 'Oh, Ida! Ida!' all day long,
Then Prince Hilarion is very well."

Illustration: William Russell Flint; restoration: Adam Cuerden