Snapshots of the Past

[5 circus clowns] – Vintage Wall Art

[5 circus clowns], 1890 — vintage poster
[5 circus clowns], 1890. Vintage poster from the Circus & Carnival collection.

(Originally scanned by the Library of Congress. Each image is professionally and digitally cleaned of artifacts such as color bars and extra borders prior to printing.)

Description

[5 circus clowns] comes to life in this vintage poster, reproduced from the original with every detail intact. The original is held by the Library of Congress, so what you hang is a true record of its time.

Choose the framed print, ready to hang the day it arrives, or the unframed print for a frame of your own. It makes a striking addition to a living room, study or office, and a thoughtful gift. Free shipping in the lower 48 states. Snapshots of the Past, founded in 2001, has served tens of thousands of customers worldwide.

[5 circus clowns]

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Five clowns crowd the frame of this small color lithograph, each in a different costume, which sets it apart from the many large circus posters of the period. Calvert Lithographing Company, a Detroit firm, printed a great deal of commercial advertising in the 1880s and 1890s, and posters like this one were pasted on walls and fences to draw crowds to the big tent shows. The card that accompanies the record is old and unverified, so the exact purpose of this sheet is uncertain. Still, it shows how chromolithography turned ordinary street advertising into bright, carefully colored images of the circus clown.

Created / published1890
Medium1 print (poster) color; 25 x 36 3/4 cm.
NotesColor lithograph copyrighted by Calvert Litho. Co. This record contains unverified, old data from caption card.
SourceLibrary of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
Original scan1,536 × 1,098 px · prints to 5 × 4 in at 300 dpi
ReferenceAMZ-SOTP-HPA-115040

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