Pam’s Pictorama Post: This card, not surprisingly, hails from Great Britain. It was mailed on December15, 1923. It was mailed from Saffron, Walden at 9:30 AM to Miss Lucy Piggot, St. Wilfords, Mill Hill, Sudbury, Suffolk. I picked it up on eBay and had it sent to the house here in NJ.
It is a hand drawn and inked card and is a good Felix likeness for that early 20’s period – square and blocky. His pose is an X and one could even see a swastika in it although I don’t think that’s the case. Mystically it says, I’m Felix, Mascot to the “Sudbury Happy-go-Lucky’s” and the signature, I assume of the artist, R Good in a design. (For another Felix fake try another post from my collection here.)
Felix has a big bloop of a nose and a couple of fangy teeth. Kim thinks he is giving us the finger which is undeniably a reasonable assumption. I thin it is more likely an insipid sword. The other hand is a bit odd too and the least Felix element. He has a rounder tummy than I associate with Felix and perhaps a less perky tail – still something about him captures what I think was the Felix mood of the day. The Happy-go-Lucky’s must have been quite a group.
Back of card.
The message on the back does not enlighten us much. It says (to the best of my ability to transcribe): c/o Mr. Penning, 28 Church Street, Saffron, Walden SX. Dear Lucy, Many thanks for Ple. (?) I am glad I’m not there to “sit down”. have got that other song its not bad. I thought I saw someone at the window Monday. I was in the carriage with the bright lights. What do you think of my mascot not bad eh? Will you take care of him until I returnthen I will disclose to you y plan now I will disclose to you my plan now I must close. I hoping your cold is better. Well best of luck and love to all. Jack (I have mostly added some punctuation which Jack seemed to feel unnecessary.)
So more than a hundred years later this message is a bit cryptic if intriguing. Something to ponder on a sunny Sunday here in New Jersey.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: I realize I am late getting to this today, but my cat care called in sick and I had chores for the maintenance of the Jersey Five plus the NY pair, so there was a lot of cat stuff that needed to go on. Then I started the gardening, but decided that I would give you all a turn first.
When I say I started the gardening, in reality I tackled the pruning of two huge flowering trees, Crape Myrtle, in our front yard. I am not an experienced pruner at all but when in bloom these trees get heavily weighted down with water and branches snap off. With a heavy rain some were sort of hanging half off and a friend lent me heavy clippers. I, who evidently don’t own a step ladder (I will look in the basement to be sure but none in the garage/mud room), took a step stool out and did my best to reach the necessary branches. I did my best, got covered in showers of tiny pink flowers.
Beauregard, a very fine guy. Has tried to make friends but NYC kits not having it.
For the cat update. The good news is that Cookie and Blackie did not stand on ceremony and refuse to eat for the first 24-48 hours and instead got right to it. Cookie is at home and enjoying her private aerie in Kim’s studio upstairs. She is not pleased with cat visitors although our enormous black male, Beau, persists in visiting and attempting to make friends. I find him sitting calmly like a loaf of cat on the day bed and her being hissy, pissy.
Blackie and Beau have had a few set to’s and I need to keep an eye on that. Beau really has tried to make friends but now is hissy himself – it is after all his full time house. Blackie is not having it but also he has a gamey leg that we had seen at work before leaving. Because he refused to walk for the vet wasn’t much they could do but pain killers. He’s better but his jumping is off and I think he knows it and is more defensive.
Some beautiful sunrises during my commute but just as happy to not do it for a few weeks!
Aside from that, much rain has made the garden explode with green but I feel like the flowers and the veggies are slower coming to fruition. I waited forever for the cosmos seeds to come up. The heavy rains moved them around and some probably actually rotted. However, we have a nice clutch for cutting flowers. The dahlias are just getting started and I am anxious for them as they and the Rose a Sharon tree attract the hummingbirds I love.
Chopped one of these into my fish stew and my guest’s head about blew off! Forgot I like it really spicey!
Tomatoes and cherry tomatoes are promising this year with the cherry tomatoes already kicking out produce regularly. The jalapeno peppers are doing a grand business, but as above the tomatoes are dragging their feet and so are some beans I put in which are just getting down to business. There’s a fig tree bursting with figs for the first time and some excellent, if mysteriously doll-sized strawberries. Huh.
A nice addition to New Jersey life are the farmer’s markets. It is a discovery for us, they’ve been here. The really good Garden State produce I love can be found at these – juicy Jersey tomatoes (my own are still green!), corn, peaches and nectarines. There is one in Red Bank and one in Fair Haven. Red Bank is about a three mile walk and the Fair Haven one is about that round trip. Kim and I like a good walk and an Uber and always be employed if we don’t want the six mile round trip to and from Red Bank or if we have heavy bags.
Today we welcome our first house guest in a long time. Our friend Bill is making the trip. He’ll be followed by some folks for lunch Monday and then another friend for three days at the end of the month. (Deva, we’re practicing and working up to your stay!) Of course I always cook a lot when I am here so it is just a question of laying in supplies for some marathon Jersey meals and deck time. I figure guests should be treated to the best of our Jersey fare and as part of that project I am making (my first!) tomato pie. So more to come on that and the relative success.
Early, new dahlia with a pollen covered bee!
So, lots more to come but I have to get outside and water the plants before it gets any later.
Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Ongoing readers know that I have been on something of an animal impersonator role lately! It was true synchronicity when I saw this hit a favored account on Instagram (@Marsh.and.Meadow) during a casual scroll stroll. I snatched it up – my head was still full of last week’s post where Steven Phillips (@woodenhillstoys) shared his whacky and wonderful poster of a cat imitator. (That post can be found here.) And here was yet another photo of a cat imitator – my first French entry. (Animal imitators abound here at Pictorama and a few other posts are here and here.)
Subsequently Steven showed me where that imitator was named J. Hurst – to date I cannot find any information about him, aside from his stint for Black Cat Cigarettes. I am sorry to report that Reine Eymard appears to be equally lost to the sands of time. My own Pictorama posts are the only items I find!
There is an Aimee Eymard who appears to be a contemporaneous performer (chanteuse) and I wonder if it is a sister. There is scant information about her as well however. Just a couple of posters. It’s fun to think about sisters on the same bill in France of 1890 – one in a cat outfit and the other a singer! Perhaps the cat sang too. Me-ow!
Sadly I cannot decode the date that this was mailed from the canceled stamp that is on the front of this card. The back is covered with writing, in French. It is of note that this particular card appears to have sold on eBay recently. Clearly I wasn’t doing my work well and if I had I would have paid a tad less – still, just happy it landed here at Pictorama.
Am open to further translations!
The text on the back roughly seems to translate as, My Dear Cante, I hope this finds you well. Since you left something about mother and a bad head cold and bad weather. I hope it will be fine and it will ruin things if everyone gets it. With love, Gaby L.H. Weirdly, although it has a canceled stamp I do not see an address so no idea how it was sent.
Reine’s full hair barely fits under her cat ear hat and she looks coyly out at the viewer. Her hands curled into faux claw paws. Her cat hat has huge whiskers and somewhat googly eyes. Her flowing gown has some colored highlights added and falls almost entirely off one shoulder. She looks like a real handful – one can only just imagine that act!
I am a bit amazed that nothing comes up on the internet when I search these performers – no posters, no theatrical listings. For now, except for these photos, they are really lost in the cracks of time.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: For those of you who read yesterday’s post, you know that this little kitty came to me from Great Britain via an Instagram post where I spotted him in a flea market display. It was the first time I purchased something from @woodenhillstoys via Instagram, but I deeply suspect not the last. He caught my eye at the same time as the Louis Wain doily (yesterday’s post), on a shelf on the same table.
This kitty is tiny, only about four inches from his nose to his curled up tail. He is velvet and sports a ratty ribbon, the same yellowish color as the velvet on his tummy. A red nose and mouth are a stitched star between glass ears with rounded ears. Still, it is his sort of splayed leg stance, arched back and curled tail that catch your eye and give him his cat-titude. A tiny hole in the tip of his tail reveals a bit of straw stuffing. He is a prime example of less is more.
A closer look at this little addition.
Meanwhile, in the process of the sale, the seller Steven Phillips (@woodenhilltoys) shared a rather extraordinary piece he recently acquired for his own collection. For those of you who are regular Pictorama readers you may remember several posts devoted to animal imitators – dogs and, of course, cats. (Some of those prior Pictorama posts can be found here, here and here.) While I wouldn’t say that the Brits owned this occupation, they are definitely in competition with the us in this narrow area of expertise and this is a grand example.
Steven Phillips cat impersonator poster.
I just about fell over! Shown here in a glorious poster size in his cat suit with a small image of him, sans suit up in the corner. I pulled this off of Instagram where he direct messaged it to me. I love that he has himself perched on this illustration of a rooftop with neatly tended fields in the distance. The cat costume is notably comical. A note in the corner says, Elite Photo Co., Glasgow, Scotland.
A wowza of weirdness in this close-up.
A Google Image search tells me that this gent in his cat suit was in ads for Black Cat Cigarettes and I have grabbed a few images shown here. (One is a Getty Image with its watermark.) I cannot seem to get the name of the performer in question. Clearly he is a rather inspired imitator and his devotion did not go unrecognized.
Black Cat Cigarettes, it goes almost without saying, had a long and storied series of ad campaigns featuring black cats – both real, drawn and clearly imitated as well. (For a post highlighting a notable item of their advertising in my collection have a read here.)
Black Cat Cigarette ad I found online. I love the two mugs who are driving!Oddly this came up the first time I put it in Google Images but not subsequently. AI had all sorts of weird answers for me when asked!
So a real hats off to Steven Phillips (and my thanks for allowing me to share the images) for a real hotsy totsy find! I have a feeling this won’t be the last we hear about the lore of this particular cat impersonator and we at Pictorama will be looking.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: I have opined on my devotion to Instagram. While I understand the downsides for many folks, having programmed my feed to be a fairly delightful walk through antique toys, cats (toy cats of course), antique jewelry, and vintage clothing (a shout out to @katestrasdin who I always enjoy – and I never stop being fascinated to what happened to silhouettes in the 1850’s!) generally makes me happy. I have written about it, intertwined with posts about my purchases. I am a rare 100% fan.
The secret may be that, although I will occasionally pause to look at Isabella Rossellini’s pigs, I generally do not follow celebrities and I do my best to avoid all political discourse. Of course I look at cats and watch cat videos. The biggest problem (or advantage, depending on how you look at it) is that I buy things. I buy jewelry (you can see a post about that here) and disparate bits and bobs. The Midwest and the South of the US tend to feed this habit – and of course England, the spiritual home of the early Felix and, like today’s acquisition, Louis Wain. (Several Wain posts exist! A few are here, here and here.)
It probably won’t surprise many of my readers to know that I am crazy enough that while scrolling through Instagram I will pause and happily look as closely as I can at tables packed with wares at far off flea markets. This is usually on my phone and therefore takes a certain kind of skill, gently expanding the image to see bits better.
This is a photo Steven Phillips sent me after I asked about the doily while still on the table.
This has actually resulted in purchases but the other day was an exception. This gentleman (@woodenhilltoys) in Britain had two items I decided I wanted if they made it through the day at the flea market. Luckily they were not sold and this doily is the first of the two.
It is very interesting as it appears to have been made contemporaneously with Louis Wain (1920’s), in his style, but not him. Although I found one other example at auction they are not common in my experience. In a sense this surprises me – Wain stuff has long been collectible and you’d think a fair number were sold and would survive but evidently not.
As noted in the title of this post, Hamlet Castle is one sign on the wall and Rehearsal of company 12 noon the other. (The auction site lists the doily by this moniker as well.) A Wain inspired cat (Hamlet?) with a club is getting read to pop this other kit (Polonius??) with a properly maniacal look on his mug. Go cat, go!
I’m not exactly sure how or where I will choose to display this tidbit. I tend to think it will come with us to New Jersey (later this morning as you read this!) where I will find a frame for it and hang it somewhere. It is a real treat. Stay tuned for the other acquisition and a story about a rather splendid item the seller shared with me but sadly he does not wish to part with. It’s a real Pictorama piece!
Pam’s Pictorama Post: This scrappy little feline is issuing a warning – Back up! Cigar in mouth, claw paws and fixed stare, he chomps on a cigar which casts a reddish glow on his face, spewing a plume of smoke. His scratching paws show claws on the ground. He might be old and tatty but he can still fight a good fight. Although I think the admonishment means Get Back I think it also alludes to having your back up.
There is a small squiggle in the lower left corner and while I thought it was a spider or other insect, I now think it is someone’s way of signing their images. Google Images was not able to help me, however I now know that this was actually a woman’s suffrage image which I had not guessed. (I have a few suffragette items, which are frequently about cats, and a post about one is here.) It does make some sense now that I know it. It belongs to a series of cards featuring this tatty tom. This card was never used or mailed.
Votes for Women statue. Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
Cards like this referred to the changing social role of women and aligning them with cat like characteristics. I look at Cookie and Blackie this morning and I am not quite sure what characteristics they are referring to – I may be missing the point. (Cookie has been pacing the apartment and meowing at us and Blackie is napping on the couch. Neither seems politically idealistic.) I am not so thick however, that I don’t understand that this is a flinty, tough kit who is ready to engage their claws on all comers. Me-ow!
From the same series but not in Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
I think I chose today’s card because we are mid-summer here in NYC and I am at sixes and sevens. A thoughtful colleague asked what I had enjoyed most about summer so far and my first thought is how hot and wet it has been and I could hardly come up with a pleasant answer. Work has been busy (event in Sag Harbor a week ago) and other than the temperatures and the humidity it has not felt like summer at all. We are generally frayed and on edge here. My fur is standing on end!
Next week sees our month long move to the Jersey shore and some vacation. I am hoping to restore my equilibrium and my spirits with long evenings on the porch among the dahlias and the hummingbirds which come to snack in the evenings. I want to eat my homegrown Jersey tomatoes, local corn and peach ice cream, along with grilling some fish. I want to drink an iced drink and read on the deck with Kim also reading in a chair across from me. (We have a towering pile of books we are bringing!) August is designed to smooth our fur and get us ready for the coming fall ahead.
Pam's Pictorama 