The Fruit Queen and the Sparrow

The sparrow takes a moment from delivering mail to speak to the fruit queen. In case you’ve never read this book, the fruit queen looks like a beautiful orange with a smiling face on it. Green leaves surround both in this fun vintage image. The original owner of this children’s book much have loved their book as almost all of the pages show water marks, pencil marks and other great bits of personality.

This is another of the wonderful vintage images I found in a children’s book published by Baldwin the Clothier in 1873 and apparently given out to their patrons. The book was entitled Original Christmas Stories: The bell fo the fruits, Little Betty, The naughty little squirrel and How they helped Santa Claus.

The Fruit Queen and the Sparrow

This image is copyright free and in the public domain anywhere that extends copyrights 70 years after death or at least 120 years after publication when the original illustrator is unknown.