Fábulas de Esopo: Diorama Plegable
Ediciones Barsal, Barcelona: 1940
- $1,553
Set of twelve bifold dioramas. Each entry in the set opens to reveal a three-dimensional scene drawn from Aesop's fables (or, in the case of the first two issuanaces, from the Nativity). Ediciones Barsal apparently held a patent for the design, which was at once portable and innovative, a combination that permitted the serialization of the dioramas and made them consummately collectable. At the exterior panels of each diorama are, on one side, an abridged text of the fable and a summation of its moral, and on the other, a list of all the titles in the series. There were eighteen published - present in this set are numbers 3, 5, 6, and 9 through18 - and nine more expected ("proximos a publicarse"). It is uncertain if these final issuances were ever realized; the publisher is evasive in the historical record, and even these present dioramas are altogether scarce, with only one showing an entry in OCLC. Each diorama held in a printed envelope; that for no. 3 is plain, while all others have a dynamic graphic as title. Light edgewear overall and some rubbing, envelopes mildly sunned and rubbed, else a near fine set and a fascinating example of children's material and print culture just after the Spanish Civil War.
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