A younger brother of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm who collected and published the folk tales, Ludwig Emil Grimm (called Louis by his family) was a significant artist in nineteenth-century Germany. Ludwig contributed illustrations to several editions of the tales beginning with the second edition in 1918.
His frontispiece
to that edition shows the young girl from "Little Brother and Little
Sister" resting with her brother who has, at this point in the story,
been transformed into the shape of a fawn.
Click
to enlarge
Dominating the illustration and forming a protective dome for the two vulnerable
children, however, is their guardian angel, an addition to the narrative by
Ludwig, who like his brothers, grew up in a Calvinistic, Protestant home.
Early on in the tale, when the children are running away from home to escape
their abusive stepmother, the boy exclaims, "May the Lord pity us."
This illustration would seem to suggest that the Lord indeed took pity and
sent a providential guardian to watch over the children.
A Romantic or pastoral providence is evident in Ludwig Richter's mid-nineteenth century interpretation. The German illustrated typically emphasized sentimental or tender moments in his drawings.
Done in the midst of World War I, Arthur Rackham's interpretation of the tale places a different spin on the story. Here the children find themselves in a much darker setting. The girl is seeking to prevent the fawn from drinking from the stream, magically contaminated by the witch. Behind them looms a barren bank and dark woods.
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