The Seven Dwarfs in Pictures

Without a doubt, seven dwarfs from the fairy tale about Snow White and her evil stepmother are the most favorite dwarfs in literature. Yet they were not so famous at the beginning. In fact, they were not even mentioned in the original title. The story was just called Snow White (Schneewittchen). Translators to other languages didn't bother with little men who were kind but unable to protect the princess in trouble. While the title slightly changed several times (Little Snow White, Snowdrop, ...) the dwarfs stayed hidden in the story for a pretty long time.

Many decades have passed before they entered the title and even more before they got names.

They were officially named in 1912 when Jessie Braham White (pen name for Winthrop Ames) made a stage play based on the fairy tale. Their names on Broadway were Blick, Flick, Glick, Snick, Plick, Whick, and Quee. These names are just a footnote to history today but Disney's production in 1937 is a different story. His animated movie was so financially important to the company that the names of the dwarfs were carefully considered for a very long time. There were 16 names in the narrow selection before the seven winners were picked.

These are: Bashful, Doc, Dopey, Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy, and Sneezy.

So now you know. Our mission for this article is to present dwarfs from the story of Snow White as the vintage illustrators saw them. Below you'll find paintings and drawings in black and white and color. All of them are Public Domain (authors died more than 70 years ago), so you can download and use them for anything you wish without asking for permission. If you find this page useful, a link from your blog or website would be greatly appreciated!

Seven dwarfs (or at least one of them) are presented in different situations. You'll find them around Snow White sleeping in one of the dwarf's beds, together in the dining room, with Snow White after being poisoned by evil Queen, and, the most famous scene with Snow White in the glass coffin.

Pictures are sorted by alphabetic order of the artists. Most of them are presented with only one image but several of them made more scenes with dwarfs.

Anne Anderson (1874-1952)

Herbert Arnold (1877-1941)

Gertrud Caspari (1873-1948)

Walter Crane (1845-1915)

John Dickson Batten (1860-1932)

As you can see, the artist was so obsessed with red hair, he painted red Snow white's hair no matter the famous description (black as raven's wings). The black and white drawing below is closer to the text.

Wanda Hazel Gag (1893-1946)

Fritz Gareis (1872-1925)

Philipp Grot Johann (1841-1892)

John Barton (Johnny) Gruelle (1880-1938)

Paul Hey (1867-1952)

Otto Kubel (1868-1951)

These illustrations are a part of a series of six picture postcards.

Eugen Johann Georg Klimsch (1839-1896)

Johann Peter Lyser (1804-1870)

Paul Friedrich Meyerheim (1842-1915)

Lothar Meggendorfer (1847-1925)

Victor Muller (1829-1871)

Carl Offterdinger (1829-1889)

Alexander Pock (1871-1950)

Count Franz Graf von Pocci (1807-1876)

Arthur Rackham (1867-1939)

Johann Heinrich Ramberg (1763-1840)

Harry Rountree (1878-1950)

Otto Ubbelohde (1867-1922)

Alexander Zick (1845-1907)

Some of the pictures above belong to the same project and some were made on very different occasions, sometimes decades apart. Now you know everything.