Calendar holder
Applied Arts
Inventory number
2021.3.4.15.AA.DC.1918.FRAuthor:
Ernest GENAULT (French, 1867 - after 1932)Description
Calendar stand celebrating the victory of WWI. It represents a old couple trying to grab food (Gasoline, Sugar, Coffee, Oil, Bread, Soaps, Confectionery, Coal) suspended on greasy pole (Cockaigne pole) where is a cook wearing an apron on which is written VICTORY and holding in his arms of baskets filled with food. At the bottom of the pole is the location for the calendar. On the left is a grandmother with a fire Tong in her hand and next to a cat, on the opposed side a grandfather who walks on his dog's tail and with the help of his cane tries to tip the candy basket.This calendar holder was probably made, not as a preparatory drawing for a wider distribution, but as a unique work for private use (as attests the last page of the 1918 calendar still glued on). The artist probably made this drawing after September 1918 when the happy outcome begins to show up.
The choice of a "Cockaigne pole" is interesting. This popular traditional game consists of climbing to the top of a greasy pole (in order to make it difficult or even impossible for some players) to catch an object which is suspended there from a wheel. Its name Cockaigne or Cockayne referring to a land of plenty in medieval myth, an imaginary place of extreme luxury and ease where physical comforts and pleasures are always immediately at hand and where the harshness of medieval peasant life does not exist. It echoes the food shortages, restrictions and rationing suffered by civilians.
Military stewardship requisitions gasoline and petroleum for war. Wheat production had halved in 1917 compared to before the war due to lack of labor in the countryside. From 1917, ration cards were drawn up for fuel, wheat product but also sugar, coffe and coal. The butcher shops close 3 days a week. In February 1918, rationing was generalized, each Frenchman received his food card. Faced with this shortage, discontent grew and stores were ransacked. the end of the war given hope for the end of the ration, but in reality it will continue after the war and until 1921 for sugar.
Materials
Water color on cardboardInk
String
Metal
Origin
1918 probably Châtellerault, FranceDimensions
Length : 29 cmHeight : 55 cm