In a cleverly sculptured ornament in Beverley Minster, represented in our cut No. 57, the goose herself is represented in a grotesque situation, which might almost give her a place in “The World turned upside down,” although it is a mere burlesque, without any apparent satirical aim. The goose has here taken the place of the horse at the blacksmith’s, who is vigorously nailing the shoe on her webbed foot.
No. 57. Shoeing the Goose.
No. 58. Food for Swine.
Burlesque subjects of this description are not uncommon, especially among architectural sculpture and wood-carving, and, at a rather later period, on all ornamental objects. The field for such subjects was so extensive, that the artist had an almost unlimited choice, and therefore his subjects might be almost infinitely varied, though we usually find them running on particular classes. The old popular proverbs, for instance, furnished a fruitful source for drollery, and are at times delineated in an amusingly literal or practical manner. Pictorial proverbs and popular sayings are sometimes met with on the carved misereres. For example, in one of those at Rouen, in Normandy, represented in our cut No. 58, the carver has intended to represent the idea of the old saying, in allusion to misplaced bounty, of throwing pearls to swine, and has given it a much more picturesque and pictorially intelligible form, by introducing a rather dashing female feeding her swine with roses, or rather offering them roses for food, for the swine display no eagerness to feed upon them.
No. 59. The Industrious Sow.
No. 60. Adulteration.