Vintage Philadelphia Print - Monsieur Bar Stool - Old City Philadelphia

Treasures from THE PHILADELPHIA / DELAWARE VALLEY COLLECTION at The Willing Mind. By exclusive arrangement with The Grand Review.

Print size is 24 x 10 and consciously formatted to work with a 24 x 10 size frame, or custom framed as you see fit. For further easy, inexpensive framing options, please feel free to contact us.

Sometimes you do a crazy thing and it works.

A recurring nightmare for me is all the wild things I've done that surely must help with the bills, and then I come home to chaw on some humble pie, once again. It is, of course, easier to do crazy things purely for the hell of it, for the bar story of it, and there are plenty more notches on the gun when you weren't expecting to make any dough. But taking that crazyville chance on something kooky with a brass ring has an even better yarn to spin as your audience slaps their foreheads and groans as they can clearly see the cliff you're driving hell bent for leather over. Still, when you jump across that canyon, and your bike explodes on the way, and the people below are rending their clothes and tearing their hair, and yet you miraculously manage to land on the other side, turn and wave with love, and hurl endless handfuls of individually wrapped oversized nonpareils down on the adoring throng, they know that THIS day at least, crazyville triumphed. Such is the case with MONSIEUR BAR STOOL.

I was having one of those weeks that no matter how hard I worked, I was barely breaking even, which is really the same as sinking with a smile. I had acquired a number of saucy French humor magazines from the late 19th century into the 1920s. Some were in fairly good shape, and some were beat up rags. As I flipped through the latter looking for any inner illustrations worth clipping and saving for a rainy day, I came across this one, sans caption of any kind, and immediately thought of Mr. Bar Stool, a purveyor of exactly that in a very prominent location in the historic Old City section of Philadelphia, just half a block up from Elfreth's Alley.

So fully believing in the righteousness of my quest, I put this graphic together with my new Frenchy copy, pulled the lower copy from another clipping from the same mag, made two copies and headed off to see ol' Mr. Bar Stool himself. On the way I spoke on the phone to someone who had personal dealings with our target and he guffawed. Not a simple phooey or tzitz, but a real roar. He told me Mr. Bar Stool was legendary for being tight with a dime, comically so. Red faced, though only I could see it if I bothered to look in the mirror, I was determined to hurl myself against the spike covered bastions anyway. I parked, marched in, introduced myself, showed the work and demanded an astronomical figure. The staff became quiet and wide eyed. Mr. Bar Stool ushered me into the further showroom and talked me down to half of that figure. I agreed, went home, paid whatever bill was staring at me and never went back.

Why?

Certainly no ill will to Mr. Bar Stool. I believe he enjoyed the comic sparkle of that moment in our lives as much as I did.

However... when you put a peanut M & M on the back of your hand, wave the other hand over it with considerable ceremony while a gang of youngsters watch, then thwack your hand and that candy disappears into your mouth, you retreat in glory, as if that is how it always is. Monsieur Bar Stool was a story with a crisp beginning, middle and end. Can't let anything spoil that...

All that said, this makes a fun present for any of your friends who've ever lived or worked near the corner of 2nd and Race.

• 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.

BUYING MORE THAN ONE PRINT? Add a second print or any number thereafter of this or any other prints in our catalog and shipping is still just $8, total!!!

International shipping is available and reasonable. Please contact us for details.

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.