1930? Fifty numbered small⅝ slips (identified on the verso as "Chromos" on both languages) 1⅝" by 2¾" featuring La Fontaine's fables with titles in French and Flemish. Each verso has identical French and Flemish advertisements for Lecocq chocolate and candies and mention of albums in which to put these fifty chromos. AU$17.50 from 191Scazna through Ebay, August, '20.
What a lovely find! I cannot discover a single reference to these engaging bilingually labeled pictures on the web. I will try to find an album of them after finding this surprising and inexpensive offer on Ebay. I would love to spend some time tracing the sources of the simple images presented here. I suspect Doré may be the source for many, but I would love to track down the visual references. These slips of paper are so thin that they are not really cards, but still I believe the best place for them in the collection is among the many "chocolate" card sets, along with likely competitors like Menier and especially Ruelle, which similarly used paper rather than card stock. I will put them there for now and hope to find an album somewhere sometime…. Apparently a child could collect eleven of these chromos and send them in for an album for all of his other fable chromos.
1900? Full-color postcard of LM showing a Prussian (?) soldier helping a dwarf-size person. "On a souvent besoin d'un plus petit que soi." $8 from Bertrand Cocq, Calonne Ricouart, France, Sept., '18.
As far as I can tell, the military uniform shown here goes back to about 1870. Is this a bit of propaganda that the German officers are appreciative of French "little people"? The postcard is unusually well colored. This is an unusual find. Well done, Bertrand!
1913? Fructine-Vichy postcard featuring a girl on a ladder using her toy to reach jam on the shelf. LM: "On a souvent besoin d'un plus petit que soi." SKy. $8 from Bertrand Cocq, Calonne Ricouart, France, Sept., '18. Second copy for $6 from Bertrand Cocq, Calonne Ricouart, France, Sept., '20.
This collection has other contributions from Fructine-Vichy. This effort is both cute and well executed. The color work is excellent. We succumb to advertising today. Here in 1913 someone is succumbing to send a cute laxative postcard to a presumed friend! The second copy seems to have been colored in with crayons in a way far less professional than was true of the first copy. This is one of many postcards celebrating aphoristic phrases from La Fontaine's fables.
The rat in this rendition of LM uses a scissors to cut the lion's elaborate net, pegged to the ground in over a dozen places. The lion sits expectantly on all fours.
The rat in this rendition of LM uses a scissors to cut the lion's elaborate net, pegged to the ground in over a dozen places. The lion sits expectantly on all fours.
1980? "On a souvelnt besoin d'un plus petit que soi." Colored postcard with a bicyclist asking a child for directions. Éditions Univers Paris H-5. $5 from an unknown source, Feb., '22.
The bicycle rider here might well be a deliveryman or a long-range tourist, since he has such huge paniers! The child points the way. Well done!
