Image of the Week: Winding the Palace Clocks
© 2018 Durga Yael Bernhard
Here is a sample illustration from a proposal for a picture book that has yet to be published. With the help of a friend, I have hauled the project onto the front burner and am preparing to plunge into its second revision. I plan to work on the manuscript over the coming months, hopefully toward a successful resolution.
Tentatively titled Pepe's Best Shoes, this is the true story of a young girl who spent part of her childhood in the great and empty palace of Versailles north of Paris, where King Louis VI and Marie Antoinette were the last of the royal lineage to live in that crown of opulence. From the time of the French Revolution until the 1920s, the palace fell into neglect, until a certain architect was hired by the government to restore it. This architect was the grandfather of my young protagonist.
Among the many responsibilities of the little girl's "Pepe" was the daily chore of winding the palace clocks. Grandfather and granddaughter would walk the marble halls, the thick ring of keys swinging from the old man's belt. Together they would wind each clock – or he would, while the young girl gazed upward, lost in the grandeur of glittering chandeliers, velvet paisley, and carved cherubim that adorned the ceilings.
The final illustrations for this book will be as detailed and elaborate as the subject itself. May I be granted the insight and determination needed to forge the plot into a well-crafted story that is both faithful to the life of my subject, engaging for young readers a century later – and convincing to the right publisher.
Wish me luck!
D Yael Bernhard