Friday, July 02, 2010

Barnum_&_Bailey_TRAINS_AND_TENTS_(German) 1900

Tent Cities from Chris Berry

The "Tent City of 1900" Barnum & Bailey (From Chris Berry)

Posters to this blog occasionally make mention of the "huge big tops" of the past. This poster appears to be a relatively accurate rendering of the Barnum & Bailey canvas city of the turn of the last century. This poster was used during the European tour and was printed by Strobridge of Cincinnati and shipped to Germany to promote the arrival of the "Groesste Schaustellung der Welt".

Posted by Buckles at 7/02/2010 06:33:00 AM

4 comments:

Jack Ryan said...

Buckles,

I treasure an antique poster (framed on my living room wall) with exactly the same illustration.

Only difference: the copy on mine is in English. If you look closely at the box office sign in the lower left corner you can make out admission prices. Prices on mine are in English shillings.

So it was obviously also done for the European tour

Jack

02 July, 2010 10:47
Unknown said...

Yes, there is a French version as well. The design (& most others) got used throughout the show's 2nd visit to Europe. I must admit I hadn't looked that closely at my copy! The train flats interested (& still do) me most - there seem more fancy sunburst type wheels around than there should be. After all, B&B had had to lower a lot of their wagons (& also the rolling stock) in order to fit the UK rail loading guage - so far I also havn't spotted sunbursts in UK or European parade photos - please someone prove me wrong!

Fred Neill

05 July, 2010 11:02
Elmo Gibb said...

I have the grand horse parade litho from this German series. The wording at the top and the bottom is pasted on over top of the original English. These Strobridge lithos are incredibly beautiful and do a nice job of portraying what was on the show. I assume they worked from photos and took a bit of license when composing the lithos.

05 July, 2010 21:17
Unknown said...

There are quite a lot of posters that got used around the European tour where the title words were really the only things changed between English, French & German. As you say, a bit of license seems to have been used in them. It was the locomotive that put me off looking too closely at the words on the banners, etc.

There is one lurking in a museum (no, I can't remember which) which suggests strongly that they worked from drawings rather than photos - it never appeared as a tour poster.

Fred Neill

06 July, 2010 04:49

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