The Cleveland Museum of Art
Collection Online as of December 18, 2025
A City and a Country Mouse
1936
(British, 1892–1955)
published by
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
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.- Fairy Tales and Fables: Illustration and Storytelling in Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (May 4-September 8, 2024).
- {{cite web|title=A City and a Country Mouse|url=false|author=Stephen Gooden, G. Harrap & Co. Ltd.|year=1936|access-date=18 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}
Source URL:
https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2001.213.3