A City and a Country Mouse England, 20th century

Aesop's Fables

A City and a Country Mouse

1936

G. Harrap & Co. Ltd.

England, 20th century

engraving

Support: Laid paper with watermark

Platemark: 16.3 x 12 cm (6 7/16 x 4 3/4 in.); Sheet: 38.4 x 24.9 cm (15 1/8 x 9 13/16 in.)

Gift of Carole W. and Charles B. Rosenblatt 2001.213.3

Catalogue raisonné: Print Collector's Quarterly (Dodgson) XXVIII.316.106

Location: not on view

This artwork is known to be under copyright.

Description

This print belongs to a portfolio of Stephen Gooden’s engraved illustrations of Aesop’s Fables—short stories with morals written in ancient Greece and still read by some today. It includes “A City and a Country Mouse,” the story of two friends that realize they prefer their own homes after visiting one another. The highly decorative prints, sold as a set, were meant to appeal to collectors with literary interests. Gooden used ornate frames and title plaques for his designs, adding a degree of grandeur to the tales they illustrate, and played with the literary context by adding a tailpiece (a design that goes at the end of a text) that fittingly reads The End.