Circus Fat Lady | Is it Maria Turussa?

Circus Fat Lady

Stock poster for a circus fat lady. Hamburg: Lith. Adolph Friedländer, ca. 1896 (no. 645)

Color lithograph poster (25 3/8 x 33 5/8 in.; 647 x 853 mm). Fold creases, some with minor separation or loss, some marginal soiling, short tears, and tiny chips. Laid down on linen. 

An arresting image by Friedländer showing a zaftig giantess about to enter a horse-drawn carriage—to the concern of the driver and the bemusement of onlookers. The lady in question appears to be modelled on the Finnish Maria Turussa, billed as "den mest kolossala dam i verlden" (see Sven Hirn, Kaiken kansan huvit: tivolitoimintaamme 1800-luvulla [Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 1986], p. 125, which illustrates a broadside from 1877 in which Maria Turussa, proportioned and coiffed very similarly to the woman in the Friedländer poster, is depicted as having broken through the floorboards of a carriage).

We are grateful to Karen Green, Curator for Comics and Cartoons, Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University, for her generous assistance with this lot.