Jeux Olympiques/ Bestiaire/ Original album: "Les animaux aux - Lot 81

Jeux Olympiques/ Bestiaire/ Original album: "Les animaux aux Jeux Olympiques" Drawings by G.H.Thompson (George Henry, 1853-1953), text by Yvonne Ostroga (1897-1981). Librairie Hachette, 1924 (?), illustrated boards, percaline spine, 28 numbered pages but 36 in reality, 25x32.5. Caution: 22 full-page plates drawn by GHT, including 8 (soccer, tennis, pole vaulting, parade, etc.) in color/lithograph. When a talented and prolific English illustrator, madly in love with animals, and a writer, the well-ordered granddaughter of brilliant anarchist forebears, collaborate, it can produce the worst or the best. And here, the result is a surprisingly, explosively good surprise. Probably because of the proximity of the 1924 Games, the authors take us back to the 1914-18 war, with animal champions and embodiments of the belligerent countries. It's all very truculent. The events will take place in Acclimatationville (!!!), and the poster announcing them is very legible. This fable, this joyful allegory for children, is also a sign of rebirth after the hell of war. The wolves of Berthabourgeois-sur-Rhin were determined to prevent the victory of France, the Americans and the English, with the help of foxes and crocs... They didn't succeed; they were crushed by M.Tigre (an allusion to Clémenceau?), and the soccer match between the English and the Berthabourgeois was cancelled because it was too bloody. Many wolves were killed or sent away...Berthabourgeois, probably because the most infamous cannon shelling Paris was Big Bertha. You can't say Germans, but it's transparent. A little-known masterpiece. Yvonne worked with Paul Bourget and Yves Benoit. TBE. Cheetahs, rabbits, rhinos, giraffes, turtles, bears and elephants twirl under the sign of the rooster framed by Boy Scouts...