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Three Pigs Went to Market

Maker (British, 1832 - 1893)
ClassificationsDRAWINGS
Dateca. 1860-1870
Mediumpen and watercolor
Dimensions4 1/2 × 7 1/2 in. (11.4 × 19.1 cm.) mat: 22 × 16 in. (55.9 × 40.6 cm.)
Credit LineThe Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. Princess Nina Mdivani Conan Doyle with assistance from The Friends
Label TextThough today best known as the father of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, Charles Doyle was an artist and illustrator who gained some success in his lifetime. His most famous work includes a large group of imaginative fairy pictures, many of which he made while resident at the Montrose Royal Lunatic Asylum, where he was treated for depression, alcoholism, and epilepsy toward the end of his life. Here, he tackles more typical nursery rhyme material in the tale of three pigs whose trip to market ends in disaster. Doyle exploits the common nursery rhyme trope of animals acting as humans to comic effect - though finely dressed in breeches and waistcoats, the pigs still act like animals, fighting and ultimately ruining the eggs and milk they had just purchased.
Status
Not on view
Object number69.4.18
Terms
    Three Pigs Went to Market
    Charles Altamont Doyle
    ca. 1860-1870
    Object number: 69.4.19
    Three Pigs Went to Market
    Charles Altamont Doyle
    ca. 1860-1870
    Object number: 69.4.20
    Three sketches
    Charles Altamont Doyle
    n.d.
    Object number: 69.4.7verso
    Sketch of three men walking past two girls on a swing
    Charles Altamont Doyle
    n.d.
    Object number: 69.4.6verso
    Macbeth and the Three Witches
    Charles Altamont Doyle
    n.d.
    Object number: 74.17.39
    Game with a Cat
    Charles Altamont Doyle
    1886
    Object number: 69.4.8
    A Fairy Girl Reclining on a Toad Beneath a Small Shrub
    Charles Altamont Doyle
    n.d.
    Object number: 69.4.6
    Sketchbook [p. 7]
    Charles Altamont Doyle
    n.d.
    Object number: 69.4.7
    Harvest Home
    Charles Altamont Doyle
    n.d.
    Object number: 69.4.4
    Fairy Pages
    Charles Altamont Doyle
    n.d.
    Object number: 69.4.5
    Blind Piper
    Charles Altamont Doyle
    n.d.
    Object number: 69.4.2