Bizarre
  1. Lepic, Ce qui Restait du Puissant Guillaume de Naillac
  2. Claeaz, Dancers with Death
  3. Anonymous American, A Naked Man and Horse
  4. Klinger, Amor, Tod und Jenseits (Love, Death and the Hereafter)
  5. Surugue, La Folie pare la Décrépitude
  6. Legros, La Légende du Bonhomme Misère : La Mort dans le Poirier
  7. Rops, L’Enlèvement
  8. Sadeler, Allegory of Opulence, Fornication and Stupidity
  9. Mohlitz, La Vierge aux Étrons (The Virgin of Turds)
  10. Legrand, Épaves de Famille (Oddballs of the Family)
  11. Jacquemart, L’Écurueil (sic)
  12. Benassit, L’Absinthe!
  13. de Bry, Punishment of the Mutinous Indians
  14. Goncourt, Le Singe au Miroir (The Monkey at the Mirror)
  15. Callot, Les Martyrs du Japon
  16. Dillon, Les Mendiants (The Beggars)
  17. Barberis, The Witch
  18. Budzinski, The Thirsty Giant
  19. Meryon, Le Ministère de la Marine
  20. Torre-Bueno, Death’s Arrival
  21. van Meurs, Animals of America
  22. Redon, Félinerie
  23. Chagall, Le Vixe
  24. Martin, Indécision (Tête de Femme)
  25. Rops, Le Calvaire
  26. Rops, Les Frères de la Bonne Trogne
  27. Gillray, Tentanda via est qua ve quoque possim Tollere humo
  28. Underwood, Simian Ecstasy
  29. Veber, Beheaded!
  30. Strang, Death and the Ploughman’s Wife: Frontispiece
  31. Corman, The Temptation of Saint Anthony
  32. Bliss, Gargoyles Spouting
  33. Castellón, Of Land and Sea
  34. Eichenberg, Isaiah 11
  35. Rops, L’Idole (The Idol)
  36. Master MZ, Aristotle and Phyllis
  37. Bracquemond, “Hors de mon soleil, canailles!"
  38. Spare, Nemesis
  39. Higgens, Forgotten
  40. Anonymous, Jewish Amulet to Protect Mother and Child
  41. Daumier, Une Expérience Qui Réussit Trop Bien
  42. Seligmann, Le Roi du Charbon (King Charcoal)
  43. Braun, The Release of Force
  44. Callot, Le Grand Rocher
  45. Forest, Bâstard Foetus Hérédité, Comte D’Averton Mort-Né
  46. Jacque, La Souricière
  47. Veber, “Ah! Qu’il fait chaud"
  48. Pastelot, Les Sorcières
  49. Lepic, Le Verger du Roi Louis (The Orchard of King Louis)
  50. Grandville, Résurrection de la Censure
  51. Tidemann, The Earth Swallows Up the People of Korah
  52. Shields, The Descent
  53. Redon, C’est le diable
  54. Sadeler, Ita Erit et Aventus Filii Hominis

6. Alphonse Legros
(1837-1911)
La Légende du Bonhomme Misère : La Mort dans le Poirier (The Legend of Goodman Misery : Death in the Pear Tree)

(click on image to print)
Legros, La Légende du Bonhomme Misère : La Mort dans le Poirier

La Légende du Bonhomme Misère : La Mort dans le Poirier (The Legend of Goodman Misery : Death in the Pear Tree)

Etching, 1877, 228 x 152 mm., Bliss 140 undetermined state (vi, vii or viii/viii). Fine impression on laid paper with full margins on three sides, irregular but still good at the left; a faint line of discoloration around the old mat opening and remains of brown paper hinges verso. Legros did a number of images of confrontations with death, but this one is not what it at first seems to be. The legend of the Bonhomme Misère is a French folk tale. The peasant, Misère, has as his only valued possession a pear tree. He gives lodging one night to two mysterious travelers, Peter and Paul, who grant him in return the rather odd gift that whoever climbs into his pear tree will be stuck there. When Death approaches, the old man inveigles him into the tree, where he is forced to stay, and thus Misère (misery or poverty) remains forever among the living. It should be noted that the circular structure in the background is not a Ferris wheel but a device used in rock quarrying in the nineteenth century. The impression bears the address of Cadart and is presumably not from the 1880 re-issue by Hamerton.

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