This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 10/28/2023
[PEEP SHOW] O RARE SHOW. London: I. Smith, ca. 1690. Mezzotint after Egbert van Heemskerck II depicting an exhibitor, widely believed to be the street performer and balladeer James Laroche (fl. 696 – 1713), with his boxed peep show resting on a table and presenting it to a group of six gathered children. Margins cropped close to 121/8 × 8¼". Sold together with two satirical seventeenth-century letterpress broadsides regarding Raree Shows, the first advertising “A Strange Monster,” with a lengthy description of the sideshow-like exhibition of an animal that “looks as fierce as a tiger, but has scarce the courage of a mouse.” [London]: R. Janeway, 1689. 12¾ × 7"; the other for a “Rary-Show lately brought from the flaming isle of Moderation, all Alive.” [London?], ca. 1710. 14¼ × 8¼" with margins unevenly trimmed.