[CIRCUS HISTORY] The Hairless Horse, Caoutchouc

A$450 · Offered by Douglas Stewart Fine Books

[Circa 1872]. Albumen print photograph of an engraving, carte de visite format, 63 x 103 mm (mount); verso with imprint of Davies, Photo. Bourke St., Melbourne , and printed text headed The Hairless Horse, Caoutchouc ; the albumen print is in excellent condition, with a small surface mark at lower right edge; the mount is clean. We have not been able to trace another example of this carte de visite in Australian collections. A wood engraving similar to the present image, by Ebenezer and David Syme of Melbourne, dated July 16, 1872, is held in the collection of the State Library of Victoria. This carte reflects popular taste of the period, with its fascination for freaks of nature displayed as curiosities in sideshows or circuses. The horse s name, Caoutchouc, deriving from the Tupi (an indigenous language of Brazil) word for rubber , was intended to describe the appearance and feel of the horse s coat. The horse was reputedly captured as a wild brumby near the Balonne River in southeast Queensland, and was subsequently exhibited in New South Wales and Victoria in 1871-72. The printed text on the back of the carte states: He has been declared by the savants of New South Wales and Victoria to be the most remarkable deviation of nature from her conventional groove that ever came before their observation. The skin is entirely devoid of one single hair, and in colour is a beautiful glossy black, giving him the appearance of being cast from indiarubber hence his name Caoutchouc. An

• Binding: Hardcover

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