More Macaronis

 Last summer I posted some postcards, from John R. Neill’s series of comical drawings titled Life Among the Macaronis. Since then I’ve picked up two additional cards in the set.

A Scandal in High Life is an image I've seen before. A dapper Macaroni is shocked to read in the paper that his grandfather was a draper! An added feature of this card is the verse, written by Neill, that tells the story explaining the gentleman's shocked expression; the other cards in the series just have titles. The series of golfing cards I previously posted all used cropped images, and this card has also been cropped from the original 1904 Sunday Magazine page.

In the Studio is a card I haven't run across before. Here we have an artist working away at his easel, painting a cat. But the poor animal has been completely trussed to the stool it sits upon, to prevent escape! Two gentlemen observe the painting process. This drawing includes typical Neill touches in the elaborate wine bottles and small glass. I would assume that this has also been cropped from a larger drawing.

This brings the total so far to five cards in this series. I don’t know if this is the entire set, or if there are more waiting to be discovered!