An amusing, hesitantly engraved illustration found on the foot of the Ionic capital V shown above.
Write a comment with your best explanation of what the image is supposed to be illustrating. I’ll choose my favorite and mail the winner a combined proof of the 12 line Ionic capital letter V and the engraving on the bottom of the block.
Oh, no, that is not a duck. It’s the printer’s boss, a fellow who, according to the oldest printer in the shop, has not printed since he was a 14 year old printer’s devil, who somehow wormed his way into the good graces of the wife of the owner of the shop, such that when the shop owner died, she gave this guy the shop to run (like an adopted son), and according to the old printer, he has grown into a lazy fat tick, just walking around all day, sticking his nose into their work and in general bugging them. Smart and wiley he once was, but he did not keep his nose to the grindstone, and thus is the joke of the shop.
It was sad what happened to grandpa really, but in fairness he never looked better. The long hair left on his severed head covered the gore from where the bomb removed his ears and the stiff gray hairs on his chair were the perfect thing to prop his head up on the coffee table for the viewing. It flattened out his nose, but that helped keep the fragments of his glasses embedded in his face from falling off. His name was Virgil and after the viewing we ate cookies.
This is obviously a self portrait of the person who carved this block. Being very proud about the work, what better way than to let everyone know who worked on this block than a self portrait? That way there is no doubt about this person’s fine craftsmanship and talents.
I bet if one were to look at other wood-type from the same company, the same portrait would be found on the backs of those, too!
Of course the portrait had to be completed rather quickly, hence the simplicity, otherwise efficiency would be compromised.
This is clearly a dire warning of the ill effects that accompany a prolonged career in printing. Namely premature poor eyesight, baldness, and worst of all, decreasing length of ones appendages. Beware! The illustrator was obviously fearful of passing on this information on to successive generations.
That is none other than Humpty Dumpty’s hip older brother Leeroy Dumpty!
Benny Franklin said, “Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.” And that’s him, and we’re us. And here we are.
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The engraving is clearly a portly duck who is too fat to fly and is afraid some smart and wiley fox will sneak up behind him and have him for dinner, so the duck painted a face on his posterior and wears a pair of reading glasses on his hindside to make the predator think he’s watching from both ends. Methinks the duck is quite smart and wiley, as well.