Leslie, Fred | A pig trainer gone to the dogs?

Leslie, Fred

Folies-Bergère les Chiens Sauteurs présentés Fred Leslie. Paris: Imprimerie Chaix (Ateliers Chéret), ca. 1890

Color lithograph poster (31 3/4 x 23 1/8 in.; 808 x 588 mm). Laid down on paper, light horizontal and vertical fold crease, French customs stamp at top. Matted, framed, and glazed with Plexiglas.

A fine Belle Époque poster of the jumping dogs of the Folies Bergère. The dogs are depicted taking a hurdle more than four meters high and jumping through a hoop of flame; one of the troupe, Wheeler, is touted to jump an obstacle more than ten meters wide. The trainer of the act, Fred Leslie, was supposed by Ricky Jay to be the same as the ringmaster of the "Porcine Circus" (see LP&FW, p. 27).