JF Ptak Science Books LLC   Post 811  Blog Bookstore

Artists seem to have discovered street vendors a long time ago, beginning at
least as far back as the 15^th century.  Annibale
Carracci (1560 – 1609), a great Baroque master, committed dozens
of street sellers to his notebooks but were all lost to time except for the
copies of them that were made and etched by Simom Guillain in 1664.  These and prints like these provide glamor and
realistic fragrance to the complexity (read=”grit”) of city life 400 years ago.
The etching of the painting seller gives us an insight into what may have been
a broken and glutted art market in Bologna
in the 1590’s. 

Another master of common life was the sculptor
Edme Bourchardon who engraved a series of dozens of such folks selling their
stuff in the street, walking here and there, waiting to be given some
money.  Bouchardon more so than
Carracci/Guillain provides a little more grit to his grit, showing some more
wear and tear to faces and clothing, giving the backgrounds some darkness and
depth.  For example, “L’Orge de Barbarie”
shows an itinerant woman peddler, playing her (revolving disk?) organ with a vieu optique  cabinet on her back:  neither of which was particularly light, nor made
of some handy light asian hardwoods bought down at the local China-friendly
Megalo-Mart.  *This* was a working
woman. 

Fast forward a bit to the 20^th century
and to an unusual pamphlet I found on the virtues and economic possibilities of
selling rabbit meat from door-to-door.   It is just such a  sad little work; it looks like

nobody in the
pamphlet wanted to be there, at all.  The
woman in this picture being sold a box of rabbit choppings by the
undertaker-like salesman (“you!”) looks at the gift as though she hoped for it
to be a box of donuts.  And who wouldn’t?  Wouldn’t it be easier to imagine someone
hopping out of their chair at the sound of the doorbell saying “hey, that’s the
Do-Nut Man!” rather than “hot damn! The rabbit-pieces-in-a-box guy is here!”.   I should
say so.  And that’s why I’m voting for
itinerant rabbit-bit salesman as elevated in the Bad Jobs department. 

Oddly enough, one of the earliest surviving Renaissance artworks depicting street vendors is this:  a man selling rabbits.

The great money maker here might have simply been
the publisher, Ralston Purina Company (of St.
Louis, MO), which
sponsored and published this pamphlet to excite people to grow their own small rabbit
farms and to feed their bunnies Purina Rabbit Chow. 

There is an entire section of this pamphlet
devoted to rabbit skin selling (illustrated), but I just can’t go there, what with
section headings of “Skins from Meat Rabbits” and “Prime, Full-Furred Skins”.
Also the bunny eared-nosed-eyed angora baby slippers  was just bloody indecent. (Did people really
wear rabbit pelt coats? )