How can I identify this illustration of a chicken and fish?

January 4, 2010 8:21 AM

Can anyone identify the origin of this illustration of a chicken with a fish tied to its back?

My girlfriend has seen this illustration in a number of places, but can't seem to find the original source of the piece. She emailed the artist on whose site the above image appears, and while we got some good leads, they were ultimately dead ends. It seems that the illustration might go back to the early 20th century, but it's hard to trace.

So: Has anyone seen this before, know someone we might consult, or know a way to track down the history of an illustration like this?

posted by rockstar to Media & Arts (3 answers total)

Best answer: Yes -- it's can be found in the book Trademarks of The '20s and '30s by Blik, Baker, and Angeli. It was 1925 logo for Scott and Bowne of Bloomfield, NJ, for a cod liver oil for chickens.

If you do a search for the word "oil" in Amazon's "Search Inside This Book" feature, you'll get the page it's on.
posted by ROTFL at 9:05 AM on January 4, 2010 [6 favorites]

Chiming back in to add that this logo was apparently an evolution of an earlier iconic image associated with the company -- a fisherman with an enormous cod on his back. So it probably had some brand equity to its original audience, whereas to us it's just surreal.
posted by ROTFL at 10:54 AM on January 4, 2010

Response by poster: This is fantastic and very helpful. Thank you so much.
posted by rockstar at 5:56 PM on January 4, 2010