The Ricky Jay Collection Part III

[CIRCUS]. Carlo Family! New York: Jno. E. Bacon, [ca. 1860s]. One-color pictorial letterpress broadside playbill advertising performances by the American acrobats and pantomimists, bearing two small wood-engraved images at top of a unicycle ascensionist performing outdoors and a big top tent surrounded by a crowd of visitors, along with a larger image near the bottom of a man dressed as a goblin bursting forth from a wooden box as a nearby young woman in a flower dress gestures toward him with a long wand. The act also featured a knife-throwing demonstration “known as the Impalement! actually Impaling a Living Human Body with Huge Daggers to the wall, by the thrower.” Among the performers were patriarch Felix Carlo, a famous clown, and his sons William (d. 1879), George, and Frederick. The three brothers toured with Barnum in 1876 and travelled internationally as the Carlo Brothers’ Circus. 18 ½ x 6”. Old tape repairs, horizontal center crease, soiling, scattered losses affecting text and image particularly to lower left edge. SCARCE.