1917? "La Fontaine l'avait bien dit!..." "Dessins de Louis Morin." Paris: Imprimerie Montsouris, P. Orsoni, directeur." Essay by Georges Blondel on the verso. 21½" x 14½. Perhaps €15, perhaps in St.-Ouen.
A fascinating piece of work with verses taken or adapted from La Fontaine's fables and applied to the Germans in WWI. I can find another product of "Imprimerie de Montsouris P. Orsoni" on the web, dated 1916. The imagery here is sometimes rough but thoroughly challenging!
1930? Arts and Crafts Movement Metal Original Printer’s Block ‘Aesop’s Fables’ (or ‘Tables’?). 8.25” x 11.6” x 1”. $60 from John Briody through Ebay, July, ’25.
Reversing this printer’s block raises a question. “Fables” or “Tables”? A quick web search reveals several instances of “Aesop’s Tables.” And in either case, where might this have come from? What a curious piece! I put it with “Printed Material” because that is the closest category I can think of. The sweep of the calligraphy is lovely!
1950? Original hand-painted card, 5½" x 3½", presenting CW. Nantes: Madame Yvonne. €10 at Recto-Verso, Strasbourg, July, '19.
There is a story somewhere behind this handmade card! This cat-woman has seized the mouse. The room shows evidence of her mad dash to catch the mouse. Is that a TV in the background? And is that something like a Billiken on top of the TV? I am a little confused about the cat-woman's clothing. Where does dress stop and skin start? Her lower half seems to indicate something like a dress or robe. Her upper body seems uncovered. There is not only a story behind the creation of this card. I would love to learn something of its history. What a surprise find!
Orange Crush Fables from Aesop. Pamphlet. Text and image from The Aesop for Children. Inside: "The Fox and the Goat." On the back is a page of advertising for Orange Crush from the Orange Crush Bottling Company of Cleveland, OH.
1935? Orange and blue dust-jacket provided by "la Neige de Savoie" illustrating FC, in which the cheese that the fox has acquired is "la Neige de Savoie" in its usual round cheese-container. $5 from Mme Denise Debuigne, Rennes, France, Feb., '05.
The back cover of this dust-jacket shows the portions of France. Inside flaps explain that if you want to grow up to have strong teeth, you will eat "la Neige de Savoie". The fox here seems particularly eager to get what the crow does not want to give up!
1935? Two handbills, executed in mostly orange and black, depicting LM and "Fortune and the Young Child." $6 each from Bertrand Cocq, Calonne-Ricouart, France, Sept., '20.
The artist here has the usual difficulty in depicting a lion. This lion ends up to be more like a human being in his face as well as his body. Elements of these two apparently monochrome handbills may have also had colors that have faded.
