This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 10/28/2023
[SWORD SWALLOWERS] TWO WATERCOLORS OF CHINESE SWORD SWALLOWERS AND ACROBATS. Late 18th century [?]. Two delicately-rendered images of fairground performers in China, the smaller picturing a man, stripped to the waist, swallowing a sword, with two musicians and a diablo juggler also in the scene, and an acrobat’s ladder behind them; the larger image on thin paper picturing a sword swallower in action with his trunk of props behind him (and a set of Cups and Balls on the ground before the box). The larger 13 × 12", unevenly cut from a larger sheet, the smaller mounted to stiff card. The larger used as an illustration in Learned Pigs & Fireproof Women, at page 276.