Aesop's Artifacts

Permanent URI for this collection

https://cdr.creighton.edu/handle/10504/84592

See also Aesop's Fables website

From plates to stamps, from cards to whiskey decanters, from toys to posters, you'll find just about anything you can imagine here. Please explore all that is to offer here in my fables Catalogue of Objects.

This is the largest online catalog of fable related objects on the internet. Many are from Aesop's Fables but you will find La Fontaine, Velazquez and Krylov also represented in this collection.

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Historical Records Statement

Materials and records in the Archives & Special Collections are historical in nature. As a result, they may contain stereotypes, such as those related to race, ethnicity, and gender, and other language and imagery that are inappropriate by today’s standards.

Materials and records are retained in order to fully represent the historical record and are presented in their original format, without context, for research in person or through online access. The materials and records are made accessible without endorsing any historical viewpoints.

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Archives & Special Collections is also guided by the Creighton University core values and beliefs on diversity and inclusion, goals for Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation, and the core values of the Society of American Archivists.

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Recent Submissions

Now showing 1 - 5 of 757
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    Gabutti French Pain Reliever Advertisements
    (1950)
    I find the artistry of these advertisements spectacular! Getting them has already set me on a quest to get the others in the set of 19 listed on the flyleaves of the envelope. There is plenty of humor in these illustrations! The advertisements seem to be for various products of Laboratoires M. De Rive in Paris. One of the two TH advertisements for Strongnol the one with brown foreground rather than green -- was actually sent as a postcard, unfortunately without a clear date stamp. The Gabutti signature is different in these two cards. The products are sometimes worked cleverly into the fable scene, as when the crane doctor brings a tube of ointment to wounded wolf. The crow is similarly dropping not a cheese to a flatterer but medicine to a sick fox with his head bandaged up. Now the full set has arrived, found on French Ebay at the time I was cataloguing the original set here. These six new cards have their own treats. The old man is trying to reveal to his sons not the glory of a well-worked family inherited plot of land but rather the glory of cash! The country mouse is recommending Voxynox to his city slicker cousin. There is lots of fun to be had here!
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    Advertisement for Southwest Airlines
    (2001)
    This illustration introduces an article written by Clint Willis in the “Enterprise Private Assets” section of the magazine. It offers the reader the best investment technique to suit his or her financial goals. It uses the moral behind the classic fable “The Tortoise and the Hare” as an analogy for different ways in which to increase one’s finances.
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    The Fable of Aesop’s Fables
    (1962)
    The advertisement plays on the circumstance that no one really knows if Aesop actually composed the fables attributed to him. The publishers promise to other authors a way to avoid this predicament. The image on the advertisement features characters from Aesop’s classic fables.
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    The Hare, the Tortoise and High Blood Pressure
    (1953)
    This advertisement for the Metropolitan Insurance Company in New York City plays on the fable “The Tortoise and the Hare.” The image printed at the top features the animals from the classic Aesop fable in an intense race.  They play on the idea that the turtle won the race because he took life much easier than the hare, and so should those with high blood pressure.
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    Advertisement for Fèves de Fuca Bouxin
    (1955)
    The fable on the verso is a clever parody of OF.  Fèves de fuca is, among other things, a laxative.  One can find fèves de fuca in all pharmacies!  The image of La Fontaine against the black background is very strong!  This card seems more of an advertisement than a trade card, but one never knows….