1895? Nine full-color cards illustrating La Fontaine's fables in landscape format with children as actors. The backs of eight, uniform in format but not content, all refer to "Dépot Central, 41, Rue Richer, à Paris."
None of the pictures on these cards is well coordinated for colors. Perhaps the best of the colored images is the bespectacled child playing the teacher in "L'Enfant & le Maitre d' École." The most curious feature of this set lies in the unusual relationship between picture side and verso. The latter seems to go its own way, to have a series of scenes of its own, independent of the picture-side. The cards on this reverse side offer six different numbered black-and-white scenes (with doubles of #1 and #4) advertising Alcool de menthe de Ricqlès. In each, one character recommends to another the virtues of this product. This product also produces white teeth and good breath for young women, according to #1. Perhaps she is getting ready to meet her fiancé, who in #5 is also taking some to get ready for her. In #2 it will revive a woman who has fainted. In #3 it is the ideal substitute in the café for the dangerous absynthe. Maybe the most persuasive is #4, where the issue is sea-sickness. In #6 a traveller gets a recommendation on a guide-book, but an even stronger recommendation for Ricqlès as the cure for every least sickness. Two of the cards use people to fill animals' roles: " Le Chat, la Belette & le petit Lapin" and "Le Loup, la Chèvre & le Chevreau." MSA seems to put the fable into the background of the picture. For other cards using the same images, see Bouillon-Rivoyre et Cie Children.
1890? 4 full-colored cards almost 4¼" x 2¾" and showing La Fontaine's fables. Each card has a block-print red title and "Deposé" on the picture side and nothing on the verso.
The haughty crow in FC is paying the bowing and scraping man in the red coat to praise him. I think these are excellent illustrations! FG is a classic, as the unhappy old man turns away from the pretty young women. Note the grapes in the left background. The faces on both figures in GA are well done: judgmental and rejected, respectively. The MM card, though cropped, presents a lovely picture of a disappointed young woman. She is in fancy attire to take milk to town, including roses on her slippers! Notice the animals galloping away from her. Well done! While "Deposé" probably indicates only that the publisher or design is registered somewhere, it is the only identifying mark I can find. I believe that these cards were ready for imprinting as trade cards, and so I have included them here.
1924? Dentol Advertising Postcard Parodying La Fontaine's FG. €6 from Bartko-Reher, Berlin, Feb., '25.
As in a similar magazine advertisement by Rabier, the fox makes this statement: "Climb up there? Never! I'm not so stupid…. Still, for teeth, Dentol is famous!"
1920? Brown and white plate 9" in diameter with an open-dentelle fringe showing DS at its center.
This plate is marked by its open dentelles around the outer rim, with an arched opening in each dentelle. Inside at the center is a recognizable image of DS. It is exactly the image that appears on Minton tiles of the same period, whether they are brown or blue. The choice of a moment to depict is good because the dog has just lost his piece of meat, and it has not yet entered the water to be lost forever.
1965? Dennis the Menace. Hank Ketcham. “The Dreamer.” One extra copy. Unknown source.
Aesop’s fables are mentioned here as an alternative to nursery rhymes. Dennis has been going strong since 1951!
