Creighton University

Here is another lovely surprise!  I do not think I have before encountered this kind of picture, constructed of a frame and then perhaps 6 horizontal and 6 vertical strips, carefully calibrated to fit together and cover each other to create an exact full-color image of TH.  The scene, I presume, has the two near the end of the race as the hare tries to make up for lost ground.  I have learned in my minimal handling of this highly delicate object that horizontal strips can easily "droop" a bit and open up white spaces.  It is a delicate but rewarding task to bring them back up to their proper position!  I can guess that it took significant time and care to weave this picture so well!  I wish I knew more about its producer and circumstances!

This individual tissage is particularly well done, and it comes to the collection thoroughly intact.

About six months ago, I catalogued an extraordinary and delicate single piece presenting TH found by Bertrand Cocq, a woven paper picture puzzle formed by weaving twelve strips of paper through a perforated sheet to create a picture.  Now six months later, I discover that I had a set of eight of them that I had purchased sometime earlier – who knows where and for how much? – beautifully boxed and called “Tissage Imagé.”  I have left the overhanging paper strips on FG so that you can sense how these puzzles work.  I also present both the the lovely original box and a sample of what the two portions of "The Horse and the Ass" look like before the second is cut into strips.  Seven of the eight fables are from La Fontaine.  “The Blind Man and the Lame,” known as a story in antiquity, is best known to the French from Florian’s presentation.   I will be so hoping that I can locate the record of when and where I got this set!