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Gibbs Cosmetics from "L'Illustration"

1929 "Les Fables de Gibbs."  Signed "Erel."  11¾ x 15¾".  GA (Feb. 9), WL (Feb. 25), and MM (May 4).  €10 for "beard cream" from Clignancourt, July, '19.  €4 each for tooth care from anciendocument through Ebay, June, '20.  €4.30 for "Mountain About to Give Birth" (March 2, 1929) from ladymary-fr on Ebay, Sept., '23.

Clever parodies of La Fontaine.  "Le Chat et l'Oiseau" is a parody of WL: whatever explanations the little bird makes, the cat will eat the bird.  GA is composed in particularly idiomatic slang verse, but I think it comes to something like this: a rogue having knocked about all summer comes to an old haunt and asks for a few rounds, offering only a brush in payment.  The innkeeper asks what he did all summer and then responds that he can brush now.  A barber snoozes and dreams that he has established a high-class shop in Paris and makes lots of money.  He is awakened to give a local a shave.  As La Fontaine wrote, we all construct castles in Spain.  The mountain brings forth a little tube that later becomes famous worldwide.

 

 

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