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Chromolithograph, 26.75" x 41" plus margins. CONDITION: Very good, old folds, a few separations at folds repaired on verso with document tape, a few light stains, a few small holes along folds. An elaborate Mardi Gras poster documenting the Knights of Momus's 1906 pageant, depicting characters, themes, and objects from Chinese, Japanese, and Indian folktales and mythology as popularized by Lafcadio Hearn. This poster shows the sixteen Knights of Momus carnival floats paying tribute to the much-beloved Lacfadio Hearn who, while editing the Times-Democrat of New Orleans brought South and East Asian languages and literature to the Big Easy. The "Title" float shows a bronze Buddha leading paper lanterns, echoing Hearn's belief that Buddhism was the greatest treasure of all "Oriental" cultures. Four floats-"The Rose of Bakawali," "Pundari," the "Dance of Tilottama," and "Yamaraja"-display Hindu and Buddhist myths from India found in Hearn's Strange Leaves from Strange Literature (1884), with "Boutimar the Dove" being one of the four "Stories of Moslem Lands" from that anthology. Five floats-"Fuji-no-Yama, the Luminous Maiden," "Horai, The Land of the Mirage," "Hoicihi, the Earless," the "Spirit of Cherry Trees," and "Moon-Desire"-depict Japanese folktales and ghost stories collected in Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan (1894), Exotics and Retrospectives (1898), In Ghostly Japan (1899), and Kwaidan: Stories and Strange Tales (1904). Four floats-"Frogs," "The Soul of the Great Bell," "The Tradition of the Tea Plant," and "Lady Li"-illustrate Chinese tales and legends peppered throughout Hearn's anthologies of East Asian literatures. Additionally, a float of "Momus" illustrates the "god of wit and ridicule" astride many clouds, out of which emerges the rising Sun. All together, this poster attests to an attentive and imaginative performance of Hearn's lifework, "scintillating with the poetry of the mystic East.no greater compliment could have been paid that beloved author than to have his native city turn to him for an inspiration," according to a review of the parade in the Times-Democrat. According to the same review, this parade was a spectacular event, boasting an "immense crowd.along the parade's route" with "attractive displays on streets" adding to the splendor of the scenes. Later in the evening, the Knights of Momus held a "Pageant at City Hall" that was "witnessed by a large number of city officials and their invited guests, ladies and gentlemen." Among the five oldest and most prestigious of New Orleans's "old-line" krewes, the Knights of Momus was founded in 1872 and continues to parade to this day. Like the other krewes, the Knights of Momus consisted primarily of "younger men from.the elite, white Protestants who had taken control of New Orleans in the 1840s.As self-proclaimed kings-gods even-the old elite constructed a world for themselves where they still reigned, their ideals were championed by chivalry, and all the women were lovely maidens" (Atkins 54). Sometimes, the kings of "old line krewes" would take prominent society ladies for their consorts, and, as an article from The Times-Democrat recounts, "at the ball following the parade" of the 1906 carnival, "Miss Daisy Charles, a debutante of the season, reigned as queen, and was attended by four maids.The queen's gown was of white, her mantle was a rich shimmering garment.heavily embroidered in silver, and she carried an armful of white roses." The Knights of Momus's performances throughout the latter years of the nineteenth and early years of the twentieth centuries regularly drew the ire of Louisiana Republicans (Atkins 55). Walle & Co. was originally known as the New Orleans Lithographing Company, formed in 1883 by Peter Davis, George Kerth, and Gustave Koeckert, as a successor to the New Orleans Lithographing & Engraving Company, a company formed two years earlier. In 1885 it was dissolved and consolidated into the Southern Lithographic Company, and Gustave Koeckert.
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