Raphael Tuck & Sons Ltd.

I Was Much Surprised

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: Every day that is a Louis Wain day is a good one here at Pictorama! I have had the pleasure of adding many Wain posts to the collection here at Pictorama, including a review of the recent book. (Some of those other posts can be perused here, here and here for additional Sunday leisure reading.)

Like my post a few weeks ago, this is another example where the sender has (consciously or unconsciously) enhanced the card with their message. Somehow when I saw it I just laughed at those words in script under the cat – thinking that he was much surprised by the basket of kittens! Surprise Pops!

Instead the brief missive written on the card is from a grandma to a sick child – chicken pox I suspect. I believe it reads, I was much surprised to hear of your spotty face. I hope its back soon be better & no marks left, don’t scratch it. Your loving Gramms. (The woman didn’t believe in periods for the most part so I have added them.) It was mailed from Paddington at 5:30 PM on May 5 of 1905. It was sent to Master C. T. Travers, Woolfanger (?), Markingham, Surrey.

The card was produced by the Raphael Tuck & Sons Company and declares in tiny print that it is a part of their Write Away postcard series. It also proclaims that it was designed in England and chromographed in Bavaria. I have only started to focus on the Raphael Tuck cards as sort of the sweet spot for Wain. (They also produced a rather fascinating set of Felix holiday cards. I have a few in my collection and find them almost impossible to turn down at auction – although they go very pricey. One is below and the post for it can be found here.)

Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.

Finally onto Mr. Wain himself. Grumpy Papa cat drops his pipe at Momma cat coming from behind the door with a basket load of kittens. Is it the first time she is presenting and surprising him with the kits? Was he, like any traditional papa, pacing and waiting pipe in hand (paw) to hear the baby news? Regardless, it is a bit of a sour puss he presents.

He happens to be tabby-spotty (additionally accurate for this card), he stand on hind legs, tail down. Ears are back in a cat look of annoyance which Wain has morphed with a human expression. Mom cat just looks tired and the five kittens (that we can see) are a mix of tabby, marmalade like Mom a white and two grays – ready to hop out of the basket and start causing chaos. Adult cats stand on a carpet of a sort of wild print with this bit of door between them. As always, Wain manages to express much with a brief, somewhat sardonic vignette.

My family only won the kitten lottery once which if Mom was here she would agree was more than enough. Our female tortie, Winkie, escaped out one morning while in heat, teaching us forever to get kits spade as quickly as humanly possible. Her paramour appeared to be a tabby we’d never seen before. And surprise she ultimately produced a gray tabby, a marmalade one, and two grays – so not unlike this bushel.

Honestly Winkie had little use for them after a few weeks of being very possessive. We kept them all (Tigger, Squash, Ping and Pong) and our feline family burgeoned at that point for a long period of time. I think it brought us to seven. The cats were still free range outside in those days so it was a bit less evident than the Jersey Five (plus visits from Cookie and Blackie) are in the (small) house today. Ultimately Winks started to pretend she had no idea where these interlopers had come from and would growl at them or at best ignore them.

Arguably Wain is pretty much at the height of his popularity and success when this card was produced. It is nice to think of Grandma, long ago, going to the shop and picking it out especially for Master Travers who was suffering a bit from this childhood ailment. My guess is that it cheered him immensely.

Christmas in July – Part 1

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: A month or so ago, someone on Facebook sent me some photos via Kim of really unusual Felix Christmas cards. They were not for sale, but on a site where they were on display as part of a collection. I had never seen them or anything like them before and loved their strangeness. I save the images for my own edification (shown here above), but unfortunately have lost both the link and the name of the person who sent them. (Apologies – and if you remind who you are I will happily update this post!) Shortly after, in that way that the universe seems to have sometimes, one of them turned up on eBay, in mint condition although used, and I snatched it up.

These cards are British and there is a tiny embossing at the bottom of the back of this one which says Raphael Tuck & Sons Ltd. Publishers to the King & Queen Produced in England with a crest of sorts which is very hard to see. A quick check online tells me that Raphael Tuck and his wife Ernestine, started the business out of their home in Bishop’s Gate in 1866. They received the royal nod in 1893 and carried the royal imprimatur from that point on. Evidently the company rode the crest of the Victorian novelty postcard and book craze and published the likes of my friend Louis Wain. The business stayed in the family, first bringing Raphael’s brothers in, and then Raphael and Ernestine’s sons. It flourished until their headquarters was severely damaged in WWII during the Blitz and, although they stay in business until 1959 they never fully recover.

Also, printed on the back is “Felix – Pathes Famous Film Cat” in tiny black letters. The outer wrapper is the glossy printed image of Felix and the inside is a separate piece of paper – held together by the ribbon like a tiny four page book. The inside is printed on slightly different stock. In case you cannot read it, under the black and white cats it reads, Snice World this! It is not technically the most festive holiday card I have ever seen – the front, Felix gets the Bird! Lucky! anyhow! doesn’t exactly scream Christmas to me. It is a nice, early Felix though, squared off and pointy the way I like him. Those exclamation points emanating from his head are cartoon great and embody his spirit nicely. If it wasn’t for The Compliments of the Season on the inside, and in spite of the jolly red ribbon, we would never know to mail this for the December holidays. This card, in splendid condition, was used and is simply signed on the left, inside, from Frank, in neat script.

inside xmas card

The other cards, supplied from the original link and shown on a loop above, are also super strange images for holiday cards, but nonetheless bear tidings for Christmas and the coming New Year on the inside of each. It almost seems as if the company printed a random series of Felix illustrated outsides and then neatly, if somewhat haphazardly, tied them together with holiday greetings insides. Felix being so popular at the time that appropriateness of message and image mattered not perhaps? In one, Felix with a sort of strange turnip which looks like a monster; Felix wearing a radio headset, and of course mine where he talks to a bird. The messages on the front of each are equally odd, Felix Gets the Bird! Lucky! anyhow! on mine and the others A Turn-up for Felix, Good Luck to You! and Cherio! The supporting characters, inside and out, appear to belong to an entirely different inking hand. More mysteries of Felix here to uncover, but jolly for a Christmas in July I think.