At the beginning of the film, the camera tracks in on the jewel-encrusted and hammered-brass storybook cover—a beauty in its own right. Sleeping Beauty was made using the Technirama process—the first animated film to be shot using this wide-screen format process—giving it an epic grandeur that dazzles to this day.
Making the prop book even more special were the pages inside—delicately detailed and luminously colored by the film’s art director, Eyvind Earle. The book and the gorgeous original art inside its covers recently underwent a yearlong conservation at the Huntington Library’s Avery Conservation Center, in San Marino, California.
The storybook prop for Sleeping Beauty is one of three that will be on display at The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library & Museum. Also on view will be the storybooks from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Cinderella.
By D23′s Max Lark
