Puss in Boots, an entertaining School-Piece: by Young Slyboots [School piece or Penmanship sheet]
Publisher Laurie & Whittle British
Not on view
This print is decorated at the top and sides with images from "Puss in Boots," a fairytale that originated in Italy with the best known version published in France by Charles Perrault (1628–1703). A cartouche at the bottom simulates a draped sheet held up by clusters of feathers that was intended to contain the name of a student scribe.
The work comes from a genre known as writing sheets, writing blanks, penmanship exercises, letter sheets or school pieces, published in Britain ca. 1660 to 1860 and used by students to demonstrate their handwriting abilities, with this example unusued. The publisher dated the print 1802, but the paper has an 1815 watermark, demonstrating that the related printing plate was used over a long period.