Snapshots of the Past

Five celebrated clowns attached to Sands, Nathans Co's Circus – Vintage Wall Art

Five celebrated clowns attached to Sands, Nathans Co's Circus, Morse, M'Kenney & Company, 1856. — vintage poster
Five celebrated clowns attached to Sands, Nathans Co's Circus, Morse, M'Kenney & Company, 1856.. 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

This vintage poster of Five celebrated clowns attached to Sands, Nathans Co's Circus brings a moment of history to your wall. Sourced directly from the Library of Congress, it represents an authentic piece of documented history.

Choose the framed print, ready to hang the day it arrives, or the unframed print for a frame of your own. A fine choice for anyone who loves history, and a gift that gets noticed. Free shipping in the lower 48 states. Since 2001, Snapshots of the Past has shipped historic prints to tens of thousands of customers around the world.

Five celebrated clowns attached to Sands, Nathans Co's Circus

Order a print

Secure checkout · SSL encryptedPowered by Stripe and PayPal

Free shipping in the lower 48 states. The checkout page shows the picture, size and price before you pay.

Sign up for our newsletter

Sent securely. No purchase needed. Unsubscribe anytime.

Ask about licensing or this print

Five clowns are pictured together on this 1856 poster for Sands, Nathans & Co.'s Circus, a touring show that was one of the better-known traveling tent companies of its day. Circus posters of the 1850s were printed as woodcuts and colored by hand or with color blocks, and they were meant to be pasted on walls and fences in towns along a show's route to draw crowds. The clowns here were promoted as stars in their own right, a sign of how much audiences by then valued the comic performers who worked between the acts and in the ring.

Created / publishedMorse, M'Kenney & Company, 1856.
Medium1 print (poster) : woodcut, color.
GenreCircus posters American 1850-1860.Woodcuts Color 1850-1860.
NotesLibrary of Congress prints and photographs: an illustrated guide / Library of Congress. Washington, D.C. : Library of Congress, 1995, p. 15 Published in: Eyes of the nation : a visual history of the United States / Vincent Virga and curators of the Library of Congress ; historical commentary by Alan Brinkley. New York : Knopf, 1997. Published in: Viewpoints; a selection from the pictorial collections of the Library of Congress .... Washington : Library of Congress ..., 1975, no. 165.
SubjectsClowns--1850-1860.
SourceLibrary of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
Original scan1,536 × 878 px · prints to 5 × 3 in at 300 dpi
ReferenceAMZ-SOTP-HPA-112461

More from the Circus & Carnival collection

Snapshots of the Past helps heritage brands, museums, historians and storytellers tell stories with history: historic prints, image licensing and historical storytelling drawn from more than 25 years of research and curation.