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Compagnies d'Assurances Generales

1955? "La Latière et le Pot au Lait." Compagnies d'Assurances Générales, Paris. 8¼" x 5". Paris: LaCroix & LeBeau, Edit. $5 from Mme Denise Debuigne, Rennes, France, May, '02.

The story of MM is presented in full color in three quadrants across the top of this lively yellow blotter. The first two scenes quote La Fontaine and are true to his version. The third scene shows the young milkmaid with her dropped pail in front of a billboard sign advertising insurance from Compagnies d'Assurances Générales. Here the milkmaid says "If I had known Assurance-Accidents earlier, I would have subscribed."

 

1955? "Le Laboureur et ses Enfants." Compagnies d'Assurances Générales, Paris. 8¼" x 5". Paris: LaCroix & LeBeau, Edit. $5 from Mme Denise Debuigne, Rennes, France, August, '02.

The story of "Le Laboureur et ses Enfants" is presented in full color in three quadrants across the top of this lively yellow blotter. The first two scenes quote La Fontaine and are true to his version. The third scene shows the children facing a billboard sign advertising insurance from Compagnies d'Assurances Générales. The father had been wise enough, the advertisement's text says, to show them that insurance is a treasure. The turning of the fable into an advertisement is clever enough.

 

1958 "La Cigale et la Fourmi." Compagnies d'Assurances Générales, Paris. 8¼" x 5". Sofoga. $7 from Bertrand Cocq, Calonne Ricouart, France, Sept., '18.

The story of Ga is presented in full color in three quadrants across the top of this lively yellow blotter. The first scene quotes La Fontaine but then the ant consoles the cicada and encourages her to start tomorrow in getting insurance from CAG.  A billboard sign advertising insurance from Compagnies d'Assurances Générales helps the ant in the third panel to make her point to a now smiling cicada, and the winter wind seems no longer to be blowing.  Though by a new printer, this blotter is consistent with the first two in format.

1965?  "La Cigale et la Fourmi." Compagnies d'Assurances Générales, Paris. 8¼" x 5". Two slightly different versions with one extra of the second version for $21 from Bertrand Cocq, Calonne Ricouart, France, Sept., '18. Duplicate of the upper version for $5 from Mme Denise Debuigne, Rennes, France, Feb., '05.

Here only one field of image joins the singing cicada in summer on the left and the pleading cicada in winter on the right.  The story remains the same as in the earlier (?) version.  Though not separated into three panels, the ant's rejoinder to the cicada is exactly the same as in the blotter above.  Again a billboard sign advertising insurance from Compagnies d'Assurances Générales helps the ant to make her point.  In this version, the printer is not acknowledged.  CAG still has the same address in Paris.  The lower version here has lighter inking on the "summer" cicada and smaller typeface for the company name at the bottom of the blotter.  Strange things!