Exhibition “Most Masterful Cat” opens next week

Next week Puss in Boots will swagger into the Cotsen gallery just in time for festivities at Reunions.  Admire the folio edition of Perrault’s fairy tales where Gustave Dore’s Puss first appeared on view in Chandler’s Box (that’s the case jutting into the Firestone lobby), turn left and come in.  In our two cases inspired by early nineteenth-century miniature libraries there will be all twelve prints illustrating the tale by Otto Speckter, the classic picture book versions by Fred Marcellino and Hans Fischer, and some less familiar interpretations we think you’ll find just as memorable.

Puss will make his bow on August 15th.  But before he departs for his castle in France, a new gallery publication commemorating his exploits will be published and made available free of charge to Cotsen’s visitors.  Until then, you can enjoy an earlier post starring Puss.

Hope to see you in the gallery over the summer…

This Halloween Cotsen Turns Twenty!

Cotsen’s gallery may be closed to the public on our twentieth anniversary, but where ever you go trick or treating, have a hair-raising Halloween!  For a little late-minute inspiration, enjoy this oldie but goodie, Andrew Lang’s Green Fairy Book.

From “King Kojata,” a fairy tale from the Slavic tradition. Andrew Lang, The Green Fairy Book (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1892) Cotsen 13655.

The prince (above) would not have found himself in this mess if his father the king had not been bearded by the demon in the well. Page 203 from Andrew Lang, The Green Fairy Book.

A princess and her dragon from “The Heart of Ice,” an unfamiliar fairy tale by the comte de Caylus in Andrew Lang, The Green Fairy Book, p. 119.

This dragon-riding beauty on the front cover of The Green Fairy Book could give Daenerys a run for her money! Cotsen 13655.