Hum-Bug (P. T. Barnum), from the Comic Natural History of the Human Race
Medium
Color lithograph with watercolor and gum
Dimensions
sheet: 13 1/2 x 8 13/16 in. (34.3 x 22.4 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1953
Accession Number
53.607(38)
Tags
Art Historical Context
In 1851, American illustrator Henry Louis Stephens, in collaboration with lithographers Rosenthal and Samuel Robinson, created *Hum-Bug (P. T. Barnum)* as part of the satirical series *Comic Natural History the Human Race*. This lithograph with watercolor and gum depicts the famed showman Phineas Taylor Barnum as a grotesque insect-like figure, its oversized head and buggy features exaggerating his reputation as a master of hoaxes and spectacle. Printed on a modest sheet measuring 13½ x 8⅞ inches, the work captures the era's booming culture of caricature, where public figures were lampooned th...
About the Artist
Henry Louis Stephens|Rosenthal|Samuel Robinson (American|American|American) · 1800 |1824 |1840 –1900 |1882 |1900
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania|American, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 1824–1882 Bayonne, New Jersey|Philadelphia, Pennsylvania