Origin of Angus McBride’s Exhalation of Decay?

[TomBombadil]

Does anyone here know the origin of Angus McBride’s artwork for Exhalation of Decay? The quote on the card refers to Minas Morgul but it appears that the artwork depicts something else. The question is, what?

[Baba]

I always believed that the image showed the entrance to the valley of morgul with the bridge which makes it possible to reach the old minas ithil, in the VF (translation of F LEDOUX) it is said that there is a white bridge in front of which Sam Frodo and Gollum arrive it seems to me that it says that there are white flowers...etc. Sorry for my English... I don't know if I'm very clear!
I don't have access to the book for the full quote..

[Kjeld]

Baba is correct, I believe. The bridge is described at the beginning of "The Stairs of Cirith Ungol" in The Two Towers, and the textual description matches the artwork perfectly, including the bridge, the white flowers, the deformed statues carved at the end, and the cold vapours rising from the stream.

[TomBombadil]

Thanks everyone, I should of course have spotted this but was apparently too tired when checking. The non-existent mystery is solved

[Khamul the Easterling]

The title draws directly from chapter 8 LotR IV:
"Paler indeed than the moon ailing in some slow eclipse was the light of it now, wavering and blowing like a noisome exhalation of decay, a corpse-light, a light that illuminated nothing."

Later on on the page there is the description of the bridge and its surroundings that others have already quoted above.

[CDavis7M]

When you read the book it's fun because sometimes you can spot card titles but they are not word for word, and so not really searchable. Although a lot of them are, like here. The lore quotes are often on point but not always. And sometimes the lore quotes have the wrong book. Or, it seems there was a discrepancy between the "experts" as to whether they were citing the book or the volume, but even that is not always correct.

[TomBombadil]

I think it was the presence of flowers that threw me off, I had forgotten about them and I’ve always imagined the bridge to be of a somewhat grander scale. Still, it is of course a lovely illustration like all of Angus McBride’s art.