Object of the Day: Giant Snails

Well-dressed children, a lamb, a precarious peacock and a deer rump—as if these weren’t enough, we’ve got some enormous snails. ENORMOUS SNAILS. Can you imagine what the French would do to those suckers?

Speaking of enormous, this card is actually quite large—double the size of most trade cards. The image on the obverse is wholly Victorian with its bucolic theme and frame-within-a-frame composition. It’s the sort of card which could have been used by any kind of business.

This one was never printed on the reverse. It was, however, handed out by someone for some reason because, clearly, it was collected and treasured. The back shows that it was, for over a century, glued into an album—serving to preserve it all this time. And, I’m glad.

Frighteningly large snails, aside, it’s quite a lovely chromolithograph. The perspective is unusually spot-on for Victorian advertising imagery. Look at the country manor house in the background. The detail in the image is beautiful. So, apparently, in a world where snails are almost as big as birds, we know, at least, that the children are well-dressed and that they possess strange powers over animals.

Only the girl in white doesn’t seem to be having a good time.