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| Louis Rhead Poster Calendar for 1897 by L. Prang & Co., Boston 1896 lithographic poster Library of Congress |
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| Louis Rhead Poster Calendar for 1897 January February March 1896 lithographic poster Library of Congress |
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| Louis Rhead Poster Calendar for 1897 April May June 1896 lithographic poster Library of Congress |
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| Louis Rhead Poster Calendar for 1897 July August September 1896 lithographic poster Library of Congress |
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| Louis Rhead Poster Calendar for 1897 October November December 1896 lithographic poster Indianapolis Museum of Art |
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| Louis Rhead The Journal 1896 lithographic poster Library of Congress |
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| Louis Rhead Jane 1898 lithographic poster British Museum |
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| Louis Rhead La Femme au Paon 1897 lithographic poster British Museum |
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| Louis Rhead St Nicholas for Young Folks 1894 lithographic poster Library of Congress |
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| Louis Rhead Read The Sun 1895 lithographic poster Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| Louis Rhead The Century for Xmas 1895 lithographic poster Library of Congress |
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| Louis Rhead The Pocket Magazine 1896 lithographic poster New York Public Library |
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| Louis Rhead The Bookman Christmas Number 1895 lithographic poster New York Public Library |
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| Louis Rhead The Devil and the Deep Sea by Rudyard Kipling (Boston Transcript) 1896 lithographic poster Victoria & Albert Museum, London |
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| Louis Rhead Easter Blessing ca. 1895 watercolor (poster design) Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
Poster
That it was cheap was not the only reason;
even for free, who needs a Vogue poster
of a lady in a long dress and a large hat
with a flowing veil, riding – side-saddle, of course –
a rearing zebra?
There must have been something, three
dollars worth of message units, speaking
to our slight impulse. Do I believe in her
elegance that sits upon wildness, rides it,
and draws upon it? Is the farouche chic?
But, no, she would be smiling. Her face is clearly
wistful – and the zebra, rearing, is trying
to throw her off, run free, and join the three
giraffes in the middle distance. Her seat is sure,
though under the long green skirts we may imagine
the muscles of her slender thigh tensed,
feel them straining in the bizarre dressage
of animal and spirit. Those contradictory graces
are joined in equipoise: the zebra's strength,
the power of that striped haunch, that arched neck,
dissipates into her veil; and she is sorry,
knowing, as the beast cannot, how long
their ride must be. She can never dismount,
can never be thrown.
He could canter off
to fall to a hungry lioness, and she
could grow fat, perhaps, and old, no doubt, and gossip
at the watering places of fashion.
But, no, she knows
she is only a poster, the hot hide under her ass,
a Platonic idea of lust. An idea blows
her veil; a real wind coming off the mountains
would whip the damned hat off . . .
If only it would!
Then something could happen – even something dreadful.
Which is to say, she doesn't believe in the zebra,
cannot imagine him, any more than he
has any idea what's up there on his back
but a body in a world of bodies, a beast
like him. He is certainly not impressed
by the silly beads about her neck, her shawl
of gauzy lime-green stuff. The bridle is real,
horse-hide or cow-hide, and the bit in his mouth
tastes of metal. He wants to spit it out.
His hoof marks scar the earth in dumb rage.
Of course, they're together, then, innocent and gorgeous,
fighting to master each other and the picture,
and each needing the other. If the wind
were real it would come alive and end in an instant
to serve, stopped-frame, as an image of earthly love.
– David R. Slavitt (1978)