M. Pernelet | Crocodile Rock

M. Pernelet

Circus Busch. Pernelet und seine Krokodile. Hamburg: Lith. Adolph Friedländer, [1902] (no. 2570)

Color lithograph poster (26 3/4 x 36 3/8 in.; 678 x 924 mm). Laid down on linen, closing some short fold separations, a bit of light marginal discoloration. Framed and glazed with Plexiglas.

While various promotional literature implied that Pernelet's crocodiles were somehow trained (perhaps even to "sing"), the whole of his very popular act seems to have been his close mingling with, and feeding of, the reptiles. A contemporary German story about the act gave Pernelet the title of Kapitän, but his first name seems now to be lost. 

REFERENCE:

cf. Edouard Charles, "The Taming of Crocodiles: M. Pernelet and his Strange Hobby," in Windsor Magazine, 1902