Large Fine Print Of Mr Punch - Tender Adoration - My Hand Puppet As My Beloved Friend And Playmate - Late Victorian

Treasures from THE TOY COLLECTION at The Willing Mind. By exclusive arrangement with The Grand Review.

Print size 18 X 24, and consciously formatted to work with a standard size 18 X 24 store bought frame, or custom framed as you see fit.

Charming. Tender. A moment shared with a trusted friend, a favorite playmate. Simple and engaging without tumbling over the cliff into maudlin, all of that good moment is somehow captured here.

That is not to take away from the reality of Mr. Punch, originally a 16th-century Italian commedia dell'arte character named Pulcinella. The English version is beloved of children to this day, at least those lucky enough to catch a traditional street performance, but the roars of innocent laughter accompany the terrible behavior of Punch who murders, if I remember the sequence correctly, the baby, his wife Judy, the policeman, the judge, the devil, and is finally eaten by the dragon, this bringing the biggest cheers of all.

As an adolescent I spent some time in Cape May, and the Lenton family there had a very fine Punch and Judy show playing all summer. The puppets were handmade by Mr. Lenton, and much more involved, mechanically than our Mr. Punch pictured here. The show was great for kids, but was laced throughout with considerable humor that only the grown ups got. My eldest sister Pam helped them work the puppets and to this day I can still sing, or at least mumble convincingly, the robust Elizabethan number that played as the audience settled in.

In all my years being a fan and associate of the puppet world without actually being a full on devotee, this is the first time I've ever beheld Mr. Punch as gentleman of color. Therefor I include him in our Africa / African American section as well as our Toy section, I'm sure to the delight of some and to the 'what the hell?' of others. When I asked him about it, he simply looked at me and said "I am."

• Handmade item
• Materials: Art stock enhanced matte paper, archival ink
• Made to order
• Only ships within United States.

SHIPPING

All prints are shipped in a sturdy mailing tube for $8, which covers postage, tube and S & H.

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A NOTE ON OUR PROCESS, OUR CHOICES AND THE QUALITY OF THE GRAPHIC CRAFTSMANSHIP THAT GOES INTO OUR PRINTS.

Every print we deem exciting enough to present to the public via our Etsy store or available here at our studio has gone through a number of steps. The first of those is always discovering and falling in love with an obscure image, always an original that we can hold in our hands. That image is speaking to us, sometime screaming “Don’t leave me here. See what I am, what I was, what I can be, what I SHOULD be!”

There is a real sense of excitement involved, and a great many smiles and knowing grins when we make that deal and bring that ancient print, that battered photo, that scrap of ephemera that contains some scrap of genius from an unknown commercial artist home with us, knowing already how we mean to approach its restoration.

There is the heady promise of a further hunt just as real as what drags a weekend fisherman out of bed at 3AM to work a favorite brook as we start our research, looking for that great backstory, and both ready and willing to tumble down as many rabbit holes as are revealed to us to get that story.

Then there is a meticulous digital restoration that is as often as much fun as riding a vintage Moto Guzzi on a winding coastal road. I don’t care if that sounds crazy, it really is like jumping in the saddle! So many choices, so many chances to take to subtly or spectacularly give new life to otherwise permanently obscure images.

This dedication and the ongoing rush of joy in the accomplishment of it, and the opportunity to share the results in our studio and here on Etsy, is the fire of passion that keeps these engines roaring. We make every effort to ensure our customers are not just satisfied but thrilled, and we happily stand 100% behind our work.