ORANGS-OUTANGS ET SAUVAGE DE BORNEO
Paris: Fremier, 1895. Fremier. First Edition. Oblong 4to, (12 1/8" W x 7 3/4" H), Fremier, antique photogravure fine art print on heavy paper. Near Fine. Item #341
Rare image with light age-toning, which is characteristic of paper from this period. [Note: we grade conservatively and endeavor to identify any defects that might affect overall quality and price.]
Though shocking to most sensibilities at the time of its execution and today, this rare dramatic and violent image reflects what might be called "the demonic ape" syndrome associated with Edgar Allen Poe's famous "Murders in the Rue Morgue" (1841). This first detective story featured a dangerous "Ourang-Outang" who slit a woman's throat with a razor!
Interestingly, Poe's tale was also illustrated by Aubrey Beardsley in 1895, the year of this engraving.
A derivative evil creature based on Poe's influential "Rue Morgue" appeared in Arthur Conan Doyle's A Study in Scarlet (1887), and its tale, "The Sign of the Four," where Tonga, a pygmy from the Andaman Islands, climbed and functioned in a manner comparable to Poe's dangerous ape. (See also Doyle's late Sherlockian "Adventure of the Creeping Man" [1923] in which an elderly professor became dangerous and even walked on his thickened knuckles after having taken a drug derived from Langurs--presumably akin to Voronoff's experiments with rejuvenating injections made from monkey testicles.)
Overlapping "killer ape" fantasies were also fostered in the late 19th century as religious agitation grew over Darwinian "Descent of Man"(1871) and related "Missing Link" questions (from 1851ff.).
Notwithstanding aesthetic-and-social convergences of themes drawn from Poe and Darwin in the late 19th century, it seems to be actually the astonishing case that an Orangutan in Borneo named "Gundul" was witnessed by primatologist Biruté Galdikas engage in "forced copulation" with a female cook!
Given the sensational nature of this image, one wonders whether tales of similar ape behavior--true, false, or folkoristic-- were circulating that formed the basis for this brutal depiction? Q.E.D.
(See also the discussion in Jeffrey Schwartz, The Red Ape; and--on the internet--behavior resembling such a sexual attack by an Orangutan named "Apollo Bob." Please understand that this antiquarian is neither anti-ape nor anti-woman! See also: Jared Diamond, The Third Chimpanzee; & Melvin Konner, M.D., Women After All: Sex, Evolution, and the End of Male Supremacy,).
Price: $195.00