La Calavera del Editor Popular Antonio Vanegas Arroyo
[Mexico: Antonio Vanegas Arroyo, ca.1907]. Broadsheet, approximately 16x12 inches. A few small chips and short tears at left margin, not affecting printed area. Evenly toned and printed on thin paper. About very good. Item #6459
"Posada produced many prints for the publishing firm of Antonio Vanegas Arroyo, founded in 1880. Here his employer, Don Toncho, allows the artist to satirize him in a calavera. The accompanying poem catalogs the types of publications he produced: guides for writing love letters, amusing poems, song lyrics, memorials, speeches, religious tracts, histories, and, of course, calaveras. Posada depicts the editor in tinted glasses, wearing a full beard and felt hat and pocket a thousand-peso note. Behind him are a typesetting stand and shelves holding his publications. Scattered about his feet are various calaveras among the litter of printed matter.... Paralleling the poet, Posada has visually cataloged Don Toncho's prolific career" -- Tyler.
The verso prints a prospective and rather satiric funeral elegy for Arroyo, set within a decorative border and accompanied by several smaller calaveras. OCLC shows three individually catalogued copies of this broadsheet, at Library of Congress, SMU, and the Newberry. An iconic image from the extensive oeuvre of Posada, and scarce.
Price: $2,000.00