1890? Complete set of twelve magic lantern slides of numbered fables of La Fontaine. Original box. 8½” x 2⅛“.
Exquisite set, numbering each of the 24 fables on 12 slides. The color work is exquisite!
1. GA / 2. FC
3. Schoolmaster & Child / 4. Robbers and Ass
5. SS / 6. Asetrologer & Well
7. and 8. MSA
9. and 10. MSA
11. The Master's Eye / 12. The Miser and His Treasure
13. BS / 14. The Angler & the Little Fish
15. TB / 16. The Man and the (Frozen) Snake
17. MM / 18. Women & Secrets
19. Two Friends / 20. The Oyster & the Litigants
21. The Mongolian's Dream / 22. The Old Man & Three Youths
23. Forest & Woodman / 24.The Fool & the Sage
2005? Copy painting of Gustav Klimt's “Fable.” Ross. 27.1” x 22.7”. Unknown source.
I show also an image of Klimt's original. As I mention of our photograph of Klimt's painting, starting from the right, we find here FS; FK; perhaps “Heron”; perhaps “Lion in Love”; and perhaps TMCM. There may well be other fables hidden in the painting. The fox's vase and the two mice not come out as clearly in Ross' more impressionistic handling of the scene. Is the "Ross" here Bob Ross, the well known painter?
2000? Cookie Cutters of Tortoise and Hare. Foose Cookie Cutters. 5.25" (tortoise) and 4" (hare). Unknown source.
A quick search online did not find identical items, even though Foose cookie cutters are all over the web. There is also Foose custom ribbon with which to make one's own cookie cutters: might this be how our two came to be?
2020? Fox & grapes bracelet. Autumn gold woodland fox with orange amber beadings.
The collection’s first bracelet! This fox will be just short of those grapes forever!
Full-page magazine advertisement for Container Corporation of America picturing TH. Black and white. Artist: Herbert Bayer. Great Ideas of Western Man Series. 11" x 8".
2020? Fifteen broadsides re-presenting Percy Billinghurst's illustrations with J.B. Rundell's texts on heavy stock. 14" x 10¾". $10 each from Shakespeare, Berkeley, July, '22.
These are attractive broadsides, nicely printed. Strong work with various colored inks. There are two striking anomalies. One is that the standard J.B. Rundell texts used regularly in Conkey editions of Aesop are used here but labeled as coming from "L'Estrange." The other anomaly was already present in the early Conkey editions: Billnghurst did these illustrations for La Fontaine's fables.
1900? Complete set of twelve lotto cards with red backing, each with two La Fontaine fable images, with titles and four lotto numbers each. €150 from Thierry Corcelle, Paris, June, '19. Six duplicate cards for $45.86 from Alexandra Lacroix of nantes-antiques, Nantes, France, through Ebay, Oct., '20.
The colored fable images here are exquisitely done. The number system is regular and consistent. The numbers in the upper left of each image are from 1 to 24. Those in the upper right of each image are from 25 to 48. Those in the lower left of each image are from 49 to 72. The numbers in the lower right of the first nine cards are from 73 through 90. The lower right numbers on the last three cards follow no system I can discern. Stiff board backing, slightly bowed.
1960? Complete set of 24 paper cigar bands from Verellen, Vieille Anvers in mint condition. 1 3/16" x 7/8". The bands are two shades of red, and frames for the colored illustrations are gold. The subjects are animal stories including fables. $18.55 from Andre Prenger at The Holland America Cigar Band and Label Store, Amsterdam, through Ebay, July, '99.
Since these fables came shortly before I left Omaha for a year away, they have eluded cataloguing and scanning. Now at last three years later I can offer them. The graphic work is done in such a small space that it is hard to do the subjects justice. And so I offer here actual size presentations on this page with an enlargement each. For me it is already fun to know that someone used fables as subjects on cigar bands! The best of the group are FG by Lessing (7), "Quartet" (8), "The Wolf with the Frozen Tail" (10), "Chantecleer" (16), "The Bees and the Bumblebees" (18), and TT (20). The verso has numbers, authors, and titles in Dutch and French.
2010? Complete Series of 10 Fable Fèves.
This is a particularly successful set of fable fèves. The challenge is regularly how to bring together the two characters often involved in a fable. That challenge makes MM perhaps the most curious piece in this group. Is her "leaning back" posture meant to suggest the coming fall of the pail of milk? The fox is wonderfully smug, though the grapes appear to be quite near his reach. WC, I would say, is particularly successful. This set can also be seen in three dimensions here. Eight of these feves, differently and rather bizarrely colored, are grouped here.
1956 41 different menus illustrating eight different fables with La Fontaine's text printed for the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique French Line. For use on transatlantic voyages between December, 1956 and July 11, 1959 on ships "Liberté," "Flandre," and "Ile de France" and at a dinner and dance at the Elks Club January 19, 1957 sponsored by the Women's Auxiliary for the benefit of Saranac Lake General Hospital (in the Adirondacks in New York State). Images by Jean A. Mercier. The menus cost between $3.66 and $30 each. While I did not keep track carefully of where I found all 41, aligning the dates of the menus showed distinct groupings and helped me match some menus with sellers. Those curious can find the list of fables, dates, ships, and sellers here.
These are not only menu jackets but menus themselves, with a fable text on the back cover and a fable image and title on the front cover. We used one of them – "The Coach and the Fly" – in the Joslyn exhibit because of its clever trompe-l'oeil use of a fly right on the menu itself. I find the images delightful. Lovely pastels work together effectively in these light-hearted pictures. To judge from the splashes on the "dinner and dance" menus, it must have been some party! The fables and numbers of copies are
The Coach and the Fly (8);
The Little Fish and the Angler (5);
FC (4);
MM (4);
The Monkey and the Dolphin (6);
The Ass and the Lapdog (3);
The Wolf Become Shepherd (6);
WL (5).
