Catch of the Week 30: Minx in Spoonlight

Thackeray, Lance (Lot) (1869 – 1916), ‘The Minx by Spoonlight’, 1908, Raphael Tuck and Sons Oilette, from the series: ‘Humour in Egypt-Cairo’, postcard 9547, Engeland

This postcard is an ‘oilette’ by Raphael Tuck & Sons of London. They invited artists and, in this case, illustrators, to make artistic souvenirs as an alternative for picture postcards. Under them the British Lance Thackery, humor was his speciality.

Starting with the title, ‘The Minx by Spoonlight’, a linguistic joke that actually is called ‘spoonerism’. The term should refer to the sounds occuring in ordered sequence (like ‘Sporks and Foons’ and the here practised ‘Minx in Spoonlight’), a phenomenon called after William Archibald Spooner (1844-1930) committing these errors quite often.*1

As an illustrator, Thackery started his comic sporting illustrations, but when having hibernated in Egypt in 1907-07, this country became his subject as well. It resulted in the album ‘The light side of Egypt’ (1908) containing 36 commented plates.*2 Soon postcards followed.

Instead of catching the grandeur of the pharaonic monuments or the exotic landscape with its natives, Thackeray depicted the ‘adventures’ of his fellow travellers, especially their misbehavior as travellers. The overdressed and over-sized well-to-dos contrast with the locals, here desperately depicted on the left side; he must be held responsible for a daring experience the tourists collectively undergo in pairs. A romantic view on the Sphinx and the pyramids, sprinkled by moonlight. Indeed, they actually are spooning, archaic for foolishly falling in love. On the right side even two donkeys cannot remain unsensitive for the moment…..

Here are some postcards (Hackerty designed hundreds), found on Andrew Humphreys website. You easily recognize the drawing style (especially the added band on the right side with an additional joke). Here the depictions are all toppled over, where is the donkey pair of ‘The Minx by Spoonlight’ straight up.