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Individual Separated Pages

1800? Portrait of La Fontaine. Blanchard sculp.

I found this torn-out frontispiece of a small (5" x 3.25") book in a book recently purchased. While it follows the standard presentation of La Fontaine in such frontispieces, here his nose seems large and the picture's impression is unusual. The oval portrait is surrounded by geometric forms filled with printer's lines.

1820? Matted presentation of four fables of Le Bailly with engravings. $20 from Barense at Foster City, Feb., '97.

Madame Barense had this ready for me as soon as I asked for fables on my first stop at this show. The four fables presented are "L'Enfant et la Noix," "Le Loup et le Herisson," "Le Pecheur et les Brochets," and "Le Cheval et le Taureau." The texts are slightly stained at their sides. The illustrations are small (1½" x 2") but strong.

1840?  Hand-colored GA page from a Spanish book of fables.  Fable 77.  Pages 183-84.  3” x 5.2”.  Unknown source.

I am cataloguing this piece long after it came to our collection.  It is one of those random parts of the collection.  I find the hand-coloring very nice but the cicada hard to make out with his green buried in the image’s browns.  Fine work by a careful hand!

 

1850?  Hand-colored print of J.B. Oudry's Fable CXXX: "Les Souhaits."  $9.99 from abclovell through Ebay, July, '22.

Here is a strong rendition of La Fontaine's fable about a couple granted three wishes.  The first two are a wish for riches and a resulting wish for poverty, to rid themselves of the burden that came with the riches.  Their third wish then turns, wisely, to a wish for wisdom.

Bennett DW Pageb.jpg (17559 bytes)

1870? Matted hand-colored illustration of DW, a page from an edition of Charles Bennett's fables, engraved by Swain. $20 from John and D'Ann Stone, The Bay Window Print Locker, Florence, OR, through Ebay, July, '99.

The colors are excellent, down to golden buckles on the natty dog's shoes. The red-polka-dotted golden scarf of the Wolf is also well rendered here. Painting a Bennett scene brings up some good questions. I have, for example, noticed the hands of both animals for the first time. Might I be noticing them because they are the only flesh-colored items in the picture?

 

1897?  “The Ambitious Fox and the Unattainable Grapes.”  Guy Wetmore Carryl.  Illustration by Peter Newell.  Harper’s New Monthly Magazine.  493-94.  Taken from “Fables for the Frivolous.”  From Moraviec, Sparta, WI, August, ’07.

Harper’s here borrows from Carryl’s playful presentation of fables.  In the process, the magazine drops the book’s title for the illustration, “The Fox Retreated Out of Range.”  Apparently from the Dec., ‘1897 issue.

 

1901?  Recasting of Roberto Fontana (Italian, 1844-1907), “Aesop Narrates his Fables to the Handmaids of Xanthus,” 1876; engraved by G. Gallieni.  $2.19 from flagg_one through Ebay, April, ’07. 

This is actually quite an interesting piece, first of all because it is not faithful to Fontana’s original.  I am creating a second page on this piece so that people can compare other versions of the piece.  A second fascination for me is the question where this appeared.  Perhaps something like the Book of Knowledge or a similar encyclopedic work?  Click here to see our version and several versions online.  The original seems to have been composed in 1876 and then published as part of the "Exposition Universelle de 1878" by Gebbie and Barrie. Gravure by Goupil Companie. 

1912    "The Fool that Tried to Please Everybody."  Illustration by Byam Shaw and text on p. 21 in "Bibby's Annual" for 1912.  $13.50 on Ebay, Dec. 20, '06.

The original painting, according to the article, is in the Lang Art Gallery.   Shaw died in 1919.  The painting is a more detailed presentation of MSA than I believe I have ever seen elsewhere.  Libby's comment is excellent. 

This is a piece of pure comedy, carried out with zest to the last detail. The fables of Aesop are of no time or place: their shrewd wisdom applies wherever human nature exists. The story of the old man and his son and the ass can be traced to an Oriental source thousands of years old; but it is just as true in the yard of an eighteenth-century English inn, where Mr. Shaw has so delightfully placed it. The first great lesson an amiable man has to learn in life is that good advisers are often completely contradictory; and, moreover, that those who give advice will, if he takes it, often be the first to despise him for having no mind of his own.  First (in the fable) they walked with the donkey; next, the boy rode it; then: to please the critics, the old man got on it.  That would not do, so they both rode it.  Accused of cruelty, they finally carried it between them.  Here we see them struggling into the inn yard with their burden, accompanied by a procession of jeering small boys, to the huge amusement of the village worthies and gossips.  Mr. Shaw has given us much more than an illustration of the fable. It is a delightful picture of old English life and character.