Odinot

1950? Six large (just over 6.25"x 8.5") cards on flexible paper from the Laboratoires Gastro-Entérologiques Odinot. Fables de La Fontaine interprétées par Jean Droit. The six are numbered I-VI. Imp. Gutenberg: Garches 512. 21, Rue Violet, Paris. Purchased as a set from Annick Tilly at the Clignancourt flea market, August, '99.

Odinot makes Gastrosodine, Sel Digestif Bé-Me-Cé, Pluribiase, and Néo Cal-Ci-Line. Except for information like this and Gutenberg's identification, the back of each page is empty. The illustration on the front is a pen-and-ink drawing including always a pretty girl. I supposed this is a sophisticated version of the "French post card." The identifying features for the girl seem to be a swishing skirt and a low-cut blouse. She is the lamb stalked by the wolf, the reed that can bend. She, with a tear on her cheek, keeps his hat away from the fellow pigeon who wants to wander. She is apparently why the shepherd does not go off on a ship. She drops grapes down to the fox below, who has lost his shoe trying to climb the tree after her. In the most surprising turn for me, the old man planting the tree is assisted by the prettiest water-can-holding-assistant that one could imagine. Good fun for people who know the fables so well that they can enjoy parodies of them.

Click on any image to see it full-size.

 

WL

OR

Les Deux Pigeons

Le Berger et la Mer

FG

Le Vieillard et les Troix Jeunes Hommes