Sidi | An American power juggler

Sidi

Sidi in his Juggling Act Pastime on the Battle Field. Hamburg: Lith Adolph Friedländer, ca. 1914 (no. 6123)

Color lithograph poster (37 3/8 x 27 3/4 in.; 948 x 708 mm). Fold creases with minor abrasion and separation, rebacked with linen, some marginal chips, tears, and soiling.

While power juggling was almost exclusively the province of Europeans, at least one purported American entered the field. But apart from this poster, the mononymous Sidi seems to have left little evidence of his career; perhaps the advent of the Great War dulled the public's enthusiasm for such entertainment. 

Sidi is here depicted in the dress uniform of a United States artilleryman, standing in front of an American encampment with the tools of his trade: a cannon, numerous cannonballs, the wheel from an artillery caisson, and artillery shells in a range of sizes.