A handleless bowl 6" across featuring OF. On the opposite side there is a panel with the fable's title and moral in cursive. Around these two elements are a raised unpainted floral pattern.
This is the kind of bowl from which I love to drink café-au-lait when I am in Paris. The image seems to me Rabier-like. The ox looks back with a wary eye on the enlarged but not yet burst frog.
1950? Six large (just over 6.25"x 8.5") cards on flexible paper from the Laboratoires Gastro-Entérologiques Odinot. Fables de La Fontaine interprétées par Jean Droit. The six are numbered I-VI. Imp. Gutenberg: Garches 512. 21, Rue Violet, Paris. Purchased as a set from Annick Tilly at the Clignancourt flea market, August, '99.
Odinot makes Gastrosodine, Sel Digestif Bé-Me-Cé, Pluribiase, and Néo Cal-Ci-Line. Except for information like this and Gutenberg's identification, the back of each page is empty. The illustration on the front is a pen-and-ink drawing including always a pretty girl. I supposed this is a sophisticated version of the "French post card." The identifying features for the girl seem to be a swishing skirt and a low-cut blouse. She is the lamb stalked by the wolf, the reed that can bend. She, with a tear on her cheek, keeps his hat away from the fellow pigeon who wants to wander. She is apparently why the shepherd does not go off on a ship. She drops grapes down to the fox below, who has lost his shoe trying to climb the tree after her. In the most surprising turn for me, the old man planting the tree is assisted by the prettiest water-can-holding-assistant that one could imagine. Good fun for people who know the fables so well that they can enjoy parodies of them.
1900? 1 French card, OR, advertising Chocolat Besnier of Le Mans. €5 from Albert van den Bosch, Antwerp, June, '23.
The card is similar in format to those distributed by Liebig about 1900, but it does not seem to replicate any of them. The boy escapes better, like the reed, than the grown man on horseback, who will perish like the oak. I find it unusual that one firm had three quite different fable card sets within a short range of time.
1900? Faience plate 8" in diameter showing two scenes depicting OR. Numbered "1." A mark on the back seems to combine the letters "M" and "C" and says "déposé Fables Terre de Fer." $17.50 from thegreenloft through Ebay, June, '22.
This plate features, in its mostly hidden background, the fable itself. One can see broken branches and leafy reeds. The plate's prominent framed picture features and soldier with rifle and a worker with spade. Which will survive? A non-colored second framed scene has two young men, the armed one of which has fallen. In the background of this scene is a fallen tree, and in the foreground some bending reeds.
1980? Two each of two Nutella "visiomatic" coasters presenting one of La Fontaine's fables, specifically TH and FC. 1½" square.
First, I am unsure if these are really coasters. I am not sure what their other use would be. Secondly, the verso says that this is a series of 6 fables. I would love to find the other four! Thirdly, it is hard to show the character of these "visiomatic" scenes, especially because, in these instances, the makers are not completely successful in bringing the whole scope of movement into the normal visual field. Adjusting the angle of vision from up to down reveals the whole scene, for example, of the cheese moving from the crow's beak to the fox's mouth, who eagerly consumes the cheese. Similarly, the tortoise passes by the hare while he is awake, but soon reaches the goal while he sleeps and then awakes with a start. After several attempts, I will here show, quite imperfectly, what the "before" and "after" of each is like in a still photograph. These are better seen in action!
2020? Numbered set of Six champagne muselet caps marked "Champagne." Each of the six has a number.
I had presumed that the first set I found just recently was unique. Here is another set! And there are more to come! At least one of the images here (FS) is taken from Bon March€'s "Oriental" trade card series.
1912 A. Noyer. "Allegorie N° 213." "Le Loup et l'Agneau." Signed by D. Mastroianni. Paris. Summer, '98.
An unusual created rural scene with figurines that is then photographed. In the background a wolf has its jaws around a lamb at the riverside. In the foreground, a young woman sits with her water jug in front of a water spout and is enraptured by a man speaking and standing in a bold stance. Did I find this in Paris or Rome?
1935? Complete set of 100 numbered cards presenting Les Fables de La Fontaine as engraved by J. B. Oudry. "Edité par les Nouvelles Galeries." ?300 from Bertrand Cocq, Calonne Ricouart, France, Sept., '20. Four cards earlier for $2.50 from Sally Carver, Warwick, RI, through eBay, Jan., '14. And 32 cards for $128 from Livres Anciens and Books, La Madeleine, France, through Ebay, April, '21. A second complete set minus card #92 for $70 from Thomas Famulary, Rumson, NJ, through Ebay, March, '22.
These are high class renditions of Oudry's work on very fine cards slightly larger than 4½" by 6 ½". The printing of the image indents that portion of each card. The verso has title, text, "La Fontaine," and "Edition des Nouvelles Galeries," Nouvelles Galeries seems to have existed in Angers, Saint-Denis, and Besançon. Cards #46 through #50 of the first set and cards #1 through #6 of the second set drop the line at the bottom of the image side: "Edité par les Nouvelles Galeries." One card in the first set (#87) has that phrase and a street address on Boulevard Bonne Nouvelle.
1962?/90? Norman Moosewell. Volume 8 of "The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle." Burbank, CA: Buena Vista Home Video. $3.15 from George Gates, Paragould, Arkansas, through Ebay, Feb., '00.
There is no "Aesop & Son" portion listed here on the slipcase.
2010? Brooch. "No act of kindness, no matter how small is ever wasted. Aesop." C. Windle? Composite of various materials, including metal inscription. Signed by C. Windle? Unknown source.
A beautiful composition. Is the saying perhaps taken from a version of LM? I wish I knew how this brooch came into the collection!
1990 Ninja TH. J.P. Rini. The New Yorker, May 7, ‘90. Xerox copy. Unknown source.
By contrast with a New Yorker cover a year later, this tortoise is a Ninja! And it takes the poor hare completely by surprise. Since he is a Ninja, he appears to be supremely confident. Sometimes there is a reason why fables turn out in the their own surprising fashion!
2015? Nine-Piece Picture Puzzle: Le pot de terre et le pot de fer. Fable de Jean de La Fontaine. Imprimerie La Dhuys. Fabrique en France. Unknown source.
The two pots in the foreground echo the scene in the background: the poor man pays while the rich man rides off without paying. A little research suggests that this printer did a series of La Fontaine puzzles in 2015, including at least TMCM. Will I be able to find more of them?
1900? Nine small scraps depicting fables. Source unknown.
These scraps have curious double indentations close to each corner. The illustrations are lively! I do not recall seeing these patterns elsewhere on cards or in books.
1980? Nine champagne muselet caps from Veuve Cheurlin, picturing each a fable of La Fontaine.
Now here is something new – and a new group of collectors, known in France as “placomusophiles.” A muselet is the wire cage that fits over the cork of a bottle of champagne, sparking wine, or beer. The quality of illustration here in a small curved surface is quite high!
1972 On November 23, 1972, the Republic of Niger issued a set of air mail stamps in honor of Jean de la Fontaine, including the three imperforate proof specimens pictured below. $5.95 from Roger Lemieux, Fort Worth, TX, through eBay, August, '05.
First, "Le Corbeau et le Renard," 25 F. Second, "Le Lion et le Rat," 50 F. Third, "Le Singe et le Léopard," 75 F. The stamps in each case seem to include three colors, black, brown, and green. A strong brown foreground seems to stand against a sketchier green background.
1972 Two imperforate stamp proofs for stamps to be issued by the Republic of Niger. Each is marked "Imprimerie des Timbres-Poste - France." 25F and 50F, respectively. In honor of Jean de La Fontaine. $10.75 from Collect+, The Hague, The Netherlands, through eBay, Oct., '02.
The surprise for me in these two proof-sheets lies in the little note in the bottom corner: "Imprimerie des Timbres-Poste - France." Does France print Niger's stamps? These two proofs are as good a printing of the stamps as I have seen. Both stamps seem to include three colors, black, brown, and green. A strong brown foreground seems to stand against a sketchier green background.
1972 On November 23, 1972, the Republic of Niger issued a set of air mail stamps in honor of Jean de la Fontaine, including the three specimens pictured below, each on a first day cover and each in a numbered series of 2000. $30 from Alexandre Przopiorski, August, '99.
The stamps in each case seem to include three colors, one of which is black and one brown. A strong brown foreground stands against a sketchier blue or green background. Are there more in the series?
1953 Eight photographic postcards of the "Carnaval de Nice," each recording a float presenting a fable of La Fontaine with mention of its producer. Les Éditions "MAR," Nice. $80 from Bertrand Cocq, Calonne Ricouart, France, Sept., '18.
These lively photographs bring back happy memories of a few days on the French Riviera and one very short evening and night in Nice. In good carnival fashion, regular old human beings are on these floats along with the bigger-than-life figures central to each fable. FG tends to be a bit on the racy side. Notice that the photographs were taken generally in front of the "Casino Municipal." A close look at the "main float" will show that characters from many fables have made their way onto that float. The grasshopper and ant are closest to us. And I seem to see two doves perched on the king's hand. And there is a tortoise on the left front of the float.
1950? NIC Ancien Dessin Animé. La Cigale et la Fourmi. Paper Cartoon Movie.
Here is a fascinating surprise! I had no idea how this little offering worked. It came as a spindle containing a roll of paper inside a broken sheath in an old box with a hand-written title. A little work reveals that there is some beautiful artwork and good storytelling on this product itself. And the product is a fascinating, if timebound, product of ingenuity.
I found a website explaining the NIC system: https://www.jouetsanciens.fr/jouets-doptique-6/ The unusual thing about the paper film is that it has upper and lower images. Viewed quickly alternatively, the paired images create a quick repeated action, like walking or working. A rather large and complex projector had a crank for moving this paper movie through. I cannot tell how long the projector would linger on a given pair of alternating images. I scanned the paper in two halves and provide also an image of what a better box and sheath look like. Fascinating! And all of this for €2!
By the way, I found a list of NIC movies and checked to see if our GA is the only fable movie. It turns out that there is a paper movie of FC. Now to find it!
To help offer a sense of the lovely detail in this movie, I offer two detail sections: the ants playing pool and smoking in winter and the grasshopper dying.
2008 Ngu Ngon La Fontaine. DVD presentation of 26 fables of La Fontaine in Vietnamese cartoons.
There seem to be two portions to each fable here: a short narration of the story, including a visual circle, like a lens, in which the fable is told. There follows then a more elaborate song, in which the fable may be more perceptively portrayed. Overall, an angelic female descends to teach the lesson in each fable. Surprisingly, occasional overlays advertise a phone number. The trademark throughout seems to be "The He Tre." It is hard to feel scammed for $1.99!
