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Other Cartoons

1854 "The Split Crow in Difficulties.--A Fable for the Day." Punch, No. 657. February 11, 1854. 10¾" x 8¼". $9.99 from Ed and Laura Harrison, oldartgallery, N. Olmsted, OH, through Ebay, August, '99.

"A split crow fancying himself an eagle, fixed his talons in the fleece of a sheep--but, neither able to move his prey, nor to disentangle his feet, he was destroyed by the shepherds." Part of the joke here lies in the fact that the crow is split and wears a Kaiser's crown--in fact, two of them! There is an inch tear through the border of the cartoon. Click on the image to see a much larger version

 Punch Crow and Ramb2bmini.jpg (27125 bytes)

1878  “Moral of the Russo-Turkish War.”  Full-page cartoon in Harper’s Weekly, July 13, 1878.  Page 553.  Unknown source.

Do I have my history right that the Ottoman gentlemen with a loan from Great Britain is avoiding danger and has left his Turkish ally to suffer at the hands of the Russian bear?  For me, the upshot of this strong cartoon is: readers of Harper’s in 1878 knew this fable of “The Bear and the Two Travelers.”  Life has changed since then!    

1887 “Judge” Magazine cover for December 24, 1887.  “The Grasshopper and the Ant.” “Bernhard Gillam, with apologies to Vibert.( Vol. 13, No. 323.  Unknown source.

This piece is a remarkable evidence of the power of tradition.  La Fontaine transformed a fable inherited from Aesop.  Vibert transformed a fable story into an anti-clerical indictment.  Gillam transforms Vibert’s work into political satire.  The central figures are remarkably faithful to Gilbert’s painting.  The addition of the White House here makes all the difference!  Am I correct in assuming that the “industrious ant” is Grover Cleveland?  Might Lucius Lamar be the “mugwump grasshopper,” a former Confederate whom Cleveland got onto the supreme court by a bare margin in 1887?

 

 

1908  Puck cartoon cover “The Republican Hare and the Democratic Tortoise.”  L.M. Glackens.  Vol. LXIII, No. 1636.  July 8, 1908.  10” x 13.7”. 

The tortoise says “If that chap only goes to sleep, I’ll win out by a mile.”  Viewers may want to notice the tortoise’s hands.  The two faces are very well done.  Are they Democratic tortoise William Jennings Bryan and Republican hare William Howard Taft?  Apparently Taft did not go to sleep!

1917?  "The goose that lays the golden egg."  Political cartoon by R. Thorndike.  Los Angeles Times.  $10 from Old Photos Online through Ebay, May, '23.

Woodrow Wilson, armed with a saw, is jeopardizing continued national prosperity by attacking the tariff.  Will he use his hammer to knock the goose cold or to smash the latest egg?  In the meantime, his election promises are stuffed into his back pocket.  Might this cartoon have appeared in the times at the time of either the 1913 or 1917 election?

1939  "The Fox and the Grapes."  Reproduction of a cartoon appearing in Punch July 5, 1939.  Bernard Partridge.  Unknown source, perhaps North Country Books through Ebay, unknown date. 

I am a bit surprised that the fox here is not somehow identified, though everyone reading "Punch" in 1939 would know that the fox is either Germany or Hitler.  I wonder if the clot of hair across the fox's brow is not an attempt to make the fox into Hitler.  Partridge did a lot of Punch caricatures or cartoons for decades. 

 

2012  “The Frog and the Scorpion.”  Syndicated colored cartoon by Mike Keefe appearing in the Omaha World-Herald’s opinion page on September 10, 2012.  Personal find. 

The three panels of the cartoon tell the traditional fable well.  A good trip among supposed friends gets interrupted when the scorpion suddenly kills the frog.  Why?  “That’s my nature.”  So Afghanistan is killing the country (USA) that was bringing it to supposed safety.