Comments on: Late 19th century french illustration of male as plaything

Question: Late 19th century french illustration of male as plaything

peacay — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 22:43:15 -0800

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.

By: Brittanie

Brittanie — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 00:03:33 -0800

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.

By: peacay

peacay — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 00:15:37 -0800

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.

By: Brittanie

Brittanie — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 00:42:16 -0800

It's ai-ight. Two heads are better than one.

By: peacay

peacay — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 00:44:06 -0800

And stop poking me with that damned knitting needle!