Creighton University

This smaller version has differences from the larger copy below.  The printer includes his name and date.  The typeface and formatting for the title under the image are different.  Though I found this at a different time and am cataloguing it at a different time, I still agree with the comments on the larger copy catalogued first.

The owner’s name is given as L. Hawk and the work was copyrighted by Gravure Goupil & Co.  Hawk’s collection is given as in New York. The print’s date is unknown, but the original painting was completed in 1869 and was signed by the artist himself in the bottom right corner. Painted in the image are two women, a dog, and several doves.  An American collector and an American publisher have picked up the French tradition of sympathy with the mendicant artist, here harassed by the dog as well as the ant-like housewife.  The dog and the doves find shelter here, but the artist finds nothing but rejection.  I have found a second Metzmacher "Cigale."  See below.  

This piece touches on some unusual history.  I had acquitted two prints of Metzmacher’s “The Grasshopper and the Ant,” in black and white.  Researching the original, I was surprised to learn that Metzmacher has done a colored oil painting rather similar but featuring only one person instead of two.  I was happy to purchase a copy.  We have that copy, and it quotes a poem “Cigale,” which is a poem about returning home after a tragic betrayal.  As far as I can tell, this grasshopper has nothing to do with a fable.  I did my own lamenting, but checked again, and several responsible sources on the web immediately relate this painting to La Fontaine’s fable.  Maybe I can add to the next researcher’s surprise and discovery!