Viola Tricolor

Count Franz Graf von Pocci's Viola Tricolor: In Pictures and Rhyme (1875, Germany)The Painter at His Easel Thus many a painter once gay and glad, Sits before his picture, and says full sad: “Oh had I but turn’d this work in to cash!” “But nobody buys since the last great smash!” Franz Pocci (1807–1876) was Bavarian court official but also a puppeteer, Marionette theater director, illustrator, poet, and playwright. Viola Tricolor's proto-Surrealist anthropomorphic pansies appear to be his best-remembered work. Read more about Pocci at wikipedia and see this website for more of his illustration work. I have in my hands a little 1977 reprint which is apparently already out of my price range. The original was printed using chromolithography and surely looks incredible. I'm not sure where I first read about the book; maybe Princeton's Graphic Arts blog. Also see: Mimpish Squinnies and the rest of the Kinderbuch series Faculty Professors Here stand the University chaps, In their grand official gowns and caps; And thinks full sure, each learned elf: “The cleverest here? - ‘tis I myself!” See the full "Kinderbuch series" of German, Austrian, and Swiss children's books See all children's books on 50 Watts