c1876. Colour lithograph in three sheets, 219 x 100cm. Repaired missing portions, slight foxing overall. Linen-backed.

Text includes “Positively, the very best show in the whole world. Our great brush dynamo electric light. Our own 3 trains of palace cars. Our city of electric lighted tents, largest on earth. The massive golden incandescent India Car of Juggernaut. A herd of 15 elephants. Sea lions and rare seals. Polar bears, snakes, crocodiles, tapirs & vlacke vark [warthog]. $25,000 hippopotamus from the Nile. Largest rhineosceros [sic] ever exhibited 8½ feet. Invested $200,000 cash capital. 20 golden chariots in parade, count them. United with Cooper, Bailey & Co., Great International, 10 allied shows. Strobridge Lithograph Co., Cincinnati, O.”

Depicts fourteen portrait vignettes including “James A. Bailey and James E. Cooper, proprietors and managers; Charles W. Fish, champion rider of the world; Miss Linda Jeal, empress of the flaming zone; Senorita Adelaide Cordona, queen of the arena; Mr William Dutton, champion somersault equestrian; Mlle Magerald Davene, French female Samson.”

In 1872 James A. Bailey “became a partner in James E. Cooper’s Circus, later called the Great International Circus, which made a profitable two-year tour of the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Java, and several countries of South America. From 1876 called Cooper, Bailey and Co.’s Circus, it became a serious competitor of P.T. Barnum’s “Greatest Show on Earth” and merged with that enterprise in 1881. Bailey’s managerial astuteness complemented Barnum’s abilities as a promoter and made their circus the most successful enterprise of its kind in the United States.” Ref: Britannica. Item #CL193-1

Price (AUD): 12,500