Mid 19th c. Cut Paper Birds and Elephants by J. McNally with Scissors in Toes at Barnum's Museum vintage cocktails The wood has a bit

The wood has a bit of a gilded appearance

animated expressions

From a second batch of drawings by the prolific and ever inventive Chicago artist James Frederic Bone (1929-2015)

I love that the blade of the opener feels rather like an extra long tail

Mid 19th c. Cut Paper Birds and Elephants by J. McNally with Scissors in Toes at Barnum's Museum vintage cocktails The wood has a bitThis one is subtle (the first photo shows it lit from behind) but I think quite special, significantly for the story of it handwritten in pencil at bottom left, surely noted not long after its making. It notes that the paper cut, of birds and elephants, was done at Barnum's Museum (operated by P. T Barnum and located in Lower Manhattan at the corner of Broadway, Park Row and Ann Street, from 1841 to 1865; it was after the museum burned down that