Puck's Pyrotechnics—Fourth-of-July Fireworks Free to All

Date1882

Artist Frederick Burr Opper (American cartoonist, 1857–1937)

Illustration CitationPuck, July 5, 1882

MediumCommercial chromolithograph

Dimensionscomposition: 18 5/8 × 11 1/4 in. (47.3 × 28.6 cm)
sheet: 20 × 13 1/2 in. (50.8 × 34.3 cm)

Credit LineGift of Helen Farr Sloan, 1978

Object number1978-586

On View

Not on view

ClassificationsPRINT

Label TextCartoonist Frederick Burr Opper places Puck, the magazine's namesake, bowing in front of a fireworks display with likenesses of William H. Vanderbilt, Russell Sage, Cyrus W. Field, and Jay Gould, and a hand holding a torch which may represent the Statue of Liberty (its parts known to Americans in the years of fund-raising before its installation). On the left is a pagoda labeled Puck Office and on the right a building labeled Tammany Hall. Among the fireworks are faces of many politicians and other prominent figures of the day, some labeled by type of firework.