The King Had a Platter of Brisket and Batter by Blanche Fisher Wright

The King Had a Platter of Brisket and Batter by Blanche Fisher Wright 

C.1918

Color Lithograph

This enchanting print, titled "The King Had a Platter of Brisket and Batter," is a full-page color plate from the 1918 first edition of The Peter Patter Book: Rhymes for Children. The artwork was created by acclaimed American illustrator Blanche Fisher Wright to accompany a whimsical nursery rhyme written by Leroy F. Jackson. The scene depicts a royal domestic meal where a king in a purple, ermine-trimmed robe uses a large knife to carve a steaming platter of food at a wooden table, while the queen, draped in a long yellow cape, sits opposite him admiring a pink rose. In the foreground, a young pageboy sits on a small wooden stool, eagerly eating a piece of bread. The illustration perfectly captures Wright’s signature style, utilizing bold black outlines and flat, rich fields of color characteristic of early 20th-century children's book art.

The piece is situated within the "Golden Age" of children's book illustration, a period when visually dominant storytelling began to replace purely text-based books. Published by Rand McNally & Co., The Peter Patter Book was designed to bring the whimsical spirit of Mother Goose into a modern American context through Jackson's rhythmic, humorous verses. Blanche Fisher Wright is best known for her landmark 1916 work The Real Mother Goose, which established the "quintessential" visual identity for nursery rhymes that persists today. This specific piece is significant as it reflects the era's shift toward high-quality, visually appealing art intended to foster emotional intelligence and imagination in young children. Wright’s ability to capture both the "innocence and mischief" of the early 1900s has made her original 1918 illustrations highly collectible artifacts of American literary history.

Dimensions: H 11 ½” x 9 ½”W

Condition: Excellent Condition