Friday, October 18, 2013

The Mysterious Contest

Nice pictorial linen card from Belgium, early 1900s.  A chopping contest of some sort?--logs, I guess--except the 'logs' look more like cylindrical zucchini.  Contestants being hydrated with pink lemonade, proffered by wing-men in plimsolls.  It's all so terribly exciting.  Who will win?  I'm 60 today.

PS 10/20.  From the Who Knew Department:  A kind reader tells me the men here having the wood chopping competition are Basque.  (I can definitely see it in the costumes now it's pointed out.  Something about the red cummerbunds.....)  The artist here, José Arrue (1885-1977), turns out to be a fairly prominent Basque artist, as Wikipedia reveals.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Arrue   He also seems to have been a competent matador.