1920? "Reintje de Vos." Six small trade cards advertising Verkade's Chocolate. Serie 59, Numbers 1-6. 1⅞" x 3½". €15 from Albert van den Bosch, Antwerp, June, '23.
This small set catches one of the "fable" elements in this Dutch rendition of the Renard story, the horse's outwitting of the wolf. Renard's conquest of the wolf is quite graphic at the end of the series!
1925? Velvet Smoking Tobacco. Unknown magazine. $10 from an unknown source, Feb., '24.
"A race ain't all in getting' started first" says the terrapin as he passes the rabbit on the road. The bespectacled terrapin is of course smoking a pipe as he passes the sleeping hare. It has been fun trying to date this advertisement. Clues include the reference to "Velvet Joe" and the markings on the tobacco tin. Velvet is boasting of the slow start their tobacco gets by being aged two years.
Velazquez' portrait of Aesop (large format) from the Prado. From the Milwaukee Antique Center, Jan., '88. Who would ever think that someone would make a poster of Aesop!
1977? Postcard reproduction of Velazquez' portrait of Aesop. Museo del Prado. Printed in Spain. Madrid: Ediciones Artisticas. $.50 at the Prado, July, '86.
This is an evocative full-length portrait of "Aesopus." One hand holds a book, while the other is inside his very simple wrap-around cloak. He looks directly into the viewer's eye. His look scrutinizes. His face is anything but pretty!
1900? Two portrait postcards with black-and-white illustrations and a moral. Illustrations after Oudry and Gheeraerts? €4 from ABC de la C.P.A., Lyon, at the Paris Post Card Exhibition, Jan., '05 and for €3 from St. Ouen, August, '13.
2008 Set of 12 fèves of the fables of La Fontaine by Vahine. €10.99 for 11 of the 12 from genealogos on Ebay, July, '20. $1.79 for the twelfth fève, the hare, from Sandysandciestore on Ebay, August, '20.
This group of fèves is unusual for being paired. Fables are of course often about pairs encountering each other. In this case, each little statue is shaped to fit alongside its partner. So I offer photos of the "couples."
1950? Fables of La Fontaine. Twenty-three (out of a series apparently of twenty-four) full-color postcards displaying favorite La Fontaine fables, with young people playing appropriate human roles. V. Spahn signs the cards. Card #17 is missing. €62 for the set from Serge Ferry at the Paris Post Card Exhibition, Jan., '05. Extra copy of #12 from Suzanne Botti, Le Bono, at the Paris Post Card Exhibition, Jan., '05. Extra copy of FK for $9.99 from Gold-Coast, Brentwood, TN, Nov., '13. Extra copies of #7 and #15 for €1 apiece from Akpool, Berlin, August, '18. TH for €4 from collecman through Ebay, June, '22.
The text of the fable takes up most of the message-space on the verso of the cards. Under the picture is "Fables de la Fontaine" in Italics at he lower left and a block-print title at the lower right. The modes of translating the fables into children's life are fascinating here. The emphasis is not on simple "cuteness." The children can play the fable straight, as in "L'Huitre et les Plaideurs" and GGE. FC is thus about one child stealing a ball while another sits up a tree and watches his ball stolen. Or a child can assume an unpleasantly animalistic role, as when TMCM shows an imperious girl chasing two boys away from a table full of food. The picture opens up whole new categories of interpretation when "The Wolf Become a Shepherd" shows a child picking up play sheep on the lawn. Again, there are whole new interpretations at work when FK shows a girl in a bathing suit with a frog clinging to her shoulder. Is she queen of the frogs? A few cards perhaps hardly make sense. What does the boy falling into the water have to do with OR? The set hits a low point, I believe, when it offers a black male child wearing feathers as "Le Geai Paré des Plumes du Paon." Perhaps the cards are meant simply as fun and not to be interpreted at all. Card #15 adds a false number to its fable title: "XIV." All the cards here seem to have been sent or addressed to the same party--but never to have been mailed with a stamp. Finally getting #17, TH, in June of 2022 completes the set.
