Late 19th century french illustration of male as plaything

July 4, 2007 10:43 PM

I'm trying to locate/identify a late 19th century illustration (almost certainly French) that depicts a miniature man on a table being prodded by (I think) a knitting needle held by one of 2 seated, bored looking women.

It's kind of a quintessential image of that notion of males being a play thing of women. It could be a print or a pastel sketch but I don't think it was a book illustration. I *thought* it was in the NYPL digital gallery but I've spent a fair amount of time unsuccessfully re-searching there so maybe I was mistaken. If it's not by someone famous it is surely a fairly famous image itself. I would have thought it was from around 1870 but my radar hasn't found it thus far so that date might also not be the most accurate. Cheers.

posted by peacay to Media & Arts (4 answers total)

Best answer: Second result under a Google image search for "small man knitting needle illustration."

From the link:

"In a 1903 illustration ironically titled "The Weaker Sex", a tiny, pleading man was examined, under glass, by four beauties who poked at him with a knitting needle."

It was apparently drawn by Charles Dana Gibson, of "Gibson Girl" fame.
posted by Brittanie at 12:03 AM on July 5, 2007

Response by poster: Thanks Brittanie. Here's a large image: it was the Library of Congress that I had been thinking about. Looks like I misremembered date, content, location, origin and style. Is there a prize for that? And I thought I'd given google images a try a couple of weeks ago. My powers must be waning.
posted by peacay at 12:15 AM on July 5, 2007

It's ai-ight. Two heads are better than one.
posted by Brittanie at 12:42 AM on July 5, 2007

Response by poster: And stop poking me with that damned knitting needle!
posted by peacay at 12:44 AM on July 5, 2007