London Transport Petticoat Lane poster of a Jewish peddler
Extent and Medium
overall: Height: 29.000 inches (73.66 cm) | Width: 19.750 inches (50.165 cm)
Creator(s)
- Avenue Press Ltd. (Printer)
- Peter Ehrenthal (Compiler)
- Underground Electric Railway Company Ltd. (Publisher)
- Elijah Albert Cox (Artist)
Biographical History
The Katz Ehrenthal Collection is a collection of more than 900 objects depicting Jews and antisemitic and anti-Jewish propaganda from the medieval to the modern era, in Europe, Russia, and the United States. The collection was amassed by Peter Ehrenthal, a Romanian Holocaust survivor, to document the pervasive history of anti-Jewish hatred in Western art, politics and popular culture. It includes crude folk art as well as pieces created by Europe's finest craftsmen, prints and periodical illustrations, posters, paintings, decorative art, and toys and everyday household items decorated with depictions of stereotypical Jewish figures.
Archival History
The poster was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2016 by the Katz Family.
Acquisition
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of the Katz Family
Funding Note: The cataloging of this artifact has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
Scope and Content
London Transport poster of a Jewish peddler advertising Petticoat Lane Market near Aldgate East underground station. It is from a painting by Elijah Albert Cox titled, Petticoat Lane, silk hat and tie vendor, part of the series, London Characters, created by Cox for the Underground Railway Company. Other pictures were a flower woman, conductor, Covent Garden porter, and newsboy. The poster was made to display on bus front panels and tram side panels. The series continued a popular tradition of English pictures, known as Cries of London, about colorful and familiar characters who made their living on the London streets. Petticoat Lane Market, still in business, is one of the oldest market sites in London, in an area known as the Jewish East End from the 1880s through the second World War. The arrival of large numbers of East European Jews caused a resurgence of street vendors, and Jews were the main traders in the Market. Immigrants with no resources would acquire goods on credit and immediately begin selling on the streets. The Lane was also a center of criminal activity, especially for fences and dealers in stolen goods, such as Ikey Solomon, a real life version of Fagin in Dickens' Oliver Twist. The poster is one of more than 900 items in the Katz Ehrenthal Collection of antisemitic artifacts and visual materials.
Conditions Governing Access
No restrictions on access
Conditions Governing Reproduction
No restrictions on use
Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements
Offset lithograph poster with a full-length portrait in three quarters right profile of a old Jewish peddler wearing 3 stacked, black top hats and a long green coat and shoes. The hat brim makes a shadow across his forehead and he looks toward the viewer with an alert, cautious expression. He has dark, thick eyebrows, hooded eyes with dark bags, and a long, pointed nose. He carries 6 multicolored scarves over his right arm and hand. A large orange, red, and blue paisley cloth sack is slung over his left shoulder and rests on his back. Along the lower background is a distant scene of street stalls and vendors, a group performing with marionettes, a sign, JACOBS / THE OLD FIRM, and a large indistinct crowd, in muted browns and greens with bright color accents. The sky is blue/white with the artist's name, E. A. COX, printed in the top right corner. There is a black border and, along the bottom, a black panel with English text.
Subjects
- Jewish peddlers--Pictorial works.
- Cries--England--London--Pictorial works.
- Jews--Great Britain--Pictorial works.
- Jews in art.
- Jewish peddlers--Art--20th century.
- Stereotypes (Social psychology) in art.
- Street vendors--Pictorial works.
Genre
- Posters
- Object