Bad, Odd Jobs Department: Door-to-door Rabbit Meat Salesman. 1942

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Artists seem to have discovered street vendors a long time ago, beginning at least as far back as the 15^th century.  Annibale Carracci (1560 - 1609), a great Baroque master, committed dozens of street sellers to his notebooks but were all lost to time except for the copies of them that were made and etched by Simom Guillain in 1664.  These and prints like these provide glamor and realistic fragrance to the complexity (read=”grit”) of city life 400 years ago. The etching of the painting seller gives us an insight into what may have been a broken and glutted art market in Bologna in the 1590’s. 

Another master of common life was the sculptor Edme Bourchardon who engraved a series of dozens of such folks selling their stuff in the street, walking here and there, waiting to be given some money.  Bouchardon more so than Carracci/Guillain provides a little more grit to his grit, showing some more wear and tear to faces and clothing, giving the backgrounds some darkness and depth.  For example, “L’Orge de Barbarie” shows an itinerant woman peddler, playing her (revolving disk?) organ with a vieu optique  cabinet on her back:  neither of which was particularly light, nor made of some handy light asian hardwoods bought down at the local China-friendly Megalo-Mart.  *This* was a working woman. 

Fast forward a bit to the 20^th century and to an unusual pamphlet I found on the virtues and economic possibilities of selling rabbit meat from door-to-door.   It is just such a  sad little work; it looks like

nobody in the pamphlet wanted to be there, at all.  The woman in this picture being sold a box of rabbit choppings by the undertaker-like salesman (“you!”) looks at the gift as though she hoped for it to be a box of donuts.  And who wouldn’t?  Wouldn’t it be easier to imagine someone hopping out of their chair at the sound of the doorbell saying “hey, that’s the Do-Nut Man!” rather than “hot damn! The rabbit-pieces-in-a-box guy is here!”.   I should say so.  And that’s why I’m voting for itinerant rabbit-bit salesman as elevated in the Bad Jobs department. 

Oddly enough, one of the earliest surviving Renaissance artworks depicting street vendors is this:  a man selling rabbits.

The great money maker here might have simply been the publisher, Ralston Purina Company (of St. Louis, MO), which sponsored and published this pamphlet to excite people to grow their own small rabbit farms and to feed their bunnies Purina Rabbit Chow. 

There is an entire section of this pamphlet devoted to rabbit skin selling (illustrated), but I just can’t go there, what with section headings of “Skins from Meat Rabbits” and “Prime, Full-Furred Skins”. Also the bunny eared-nosed-eyed angora baby slippers  was just bloody indecent. (Did people really wear rabbit pelt coats? )

Comments

[MrCachet]

I'm here via Marty Weil...

I'm interested in whether or not you might possibly have any Japanese port city maps - Kumamoto comes to mind since it is a sister city to Helena, MT, my hometown.

I use maps from which I've made copies to create envelopes for my art:
http://oldpaperart.blogspot.com/2009/09/horse-returns.html

My email address is [email protected]

I've looked at a couple of your posts so far. Most blogs that I follow are art related, but you seem to have a bit of that as well!