Broadside with 48 scenes depicting animals from Mr Bidel's zoo in Barcelona
ca. 1870–80
Medium
Wood engraving on yellow paper
Dimensions
Sheet: 17 5/16 in. × 13 in. (44 × 33 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Max G. Wildnauer Fund, 1978
Accession Number
1978.643.34(6)
Tags
Art Historical Context
This vibrant broadside, created around 1870–1880 by Antonio Bosch and Narciso Ramírez, offers a lively glimpse into the popular entertainment of nineteenth-century Barcelona. Printed as a single sheet featuring forty-eight individual scenes, it showcases the exotic animals of Mr. Bidel’s zoo, including lions, tigers, elephants, and birds alongside their human handlers. Such broadsides served as affordable promotional tools, allowing the public to imagine the wonders of traveling menageries and early zoological collections at a time when international trade brought increasing numbers of exotic ...