Manuel Manilla Engraving Pronunciamiento de Leones contra Gatos y Ratones

Description

Manuel Manilla: “Pronunciamiento de Leones contra Gatos y Ratones”, grabado

In late 19th-century Mexico City, the lions declared war on the cats and the mice, and everyone in town got the joke. This original broadside by Manuel Manilla is one of those pieces of the popular press that were read, sung, and passed from hand to hand.

The sheet, 30 x 20 cm on the Vanegas Arroyo press's characteristic red china paper, is printed on both sides. On the front, inside a typographic border, the engraving shows the moment of the "pronunciamiento": two lions face three upright cats while several mice escape along the bottom. Below, the title in large type and two columns of verses narrating the Lion's tribunal, which orders imprisonments throughout the animal kingdom. On the back the ballads continue and, at the foot, the imprint line: "MEXICO. Imprenta de Antonio Vanegas Arroyo, Calle de Santa Teresa, Núm. 1."

El artista

Manuel Manilla (c. 1830-1895) was the first draftsman and engraver of Antonio Vanegas Arroyo's print shop, where he worked from 1882 until his death. He is the great forerunner of José Guadalupe Posada: before him, Manilla was already creating the festive calaveras and engraved satires that would make the Mexican popular press famous. His work is held in collections such as the Library of Congress in Washington and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

La técnica

Relief engraving printed typographically in black ink on pink china paper, the inseparable support of the Vanegas Arroyo broadsides. The piece dates from the late 19th century, from the years when Manilla was the print shop's star engraver.

Style and interpretation

The sheet is a political satire in the key of fable. The Lion sets up his tribunal and hands out imprisonments: the crow is the "president who played the boss," the ant the "snitch," the parrot his assistant, and the heron the "intendant." Each animal embodies an office of Porfirian power and justice, with its abuses, its informers, and its dungeons. The popular refrain "Yo vide llorar á un hombre, preso por una mujer" gives it the tone of a street ballad. The text is a parody of power that the people of the time knew how to read between the lines.

Condition

The sheet is complete on both sides, with no tears or losses. It shows the light age-toning at edges and tips proper to a printed item more than 130 years old, and the pink of the paper keeps its vividness very well. For a broadside, an object born to be read and thrown away, surviving this whole is already a feat: those soft traces of time are its patina, not a flaw.

Collecting

This is an original period broadside, not a later reprint: original Manilla pieces are notably scarcer on the market than Posada, and this one in particular is cited in the academic literature on Mexican popular printmaking. Its large vignette, its still-legible satire, and its magnificent condition make it a piece worthy of any collection of 19th-century Mexican popular art.