Life, 1888-12-06 · page 14 of 16
Life — December 6, 1888 — page 14: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This satire mocks pretentious German social rituals by presenting them as if they were ancient Egyptian tomb paintings. The conceit is brilliant: a fictional "Egyptian ambassador" supposedly documented his observations of a small German court's customs, making their elaborate tea entertainment seem absurdly ceremonial and anachronistic. The humor targets several things: the forced formality of German bourgeois society (arrival by "second-class coupe," emphasis on "first-class fare"), the tedium of musical performances featuring child prodigies and operatic excerpts ("Tristan und Isolde"), and the class pretension distinguishing "educated and uneducated ears." The closing observation—that smoking and male company finally bring "the first real pleasure"—suggests the entire tea was unbearable social theater. By framing contemporary German manners as ancient history, Life ridicules their stuffiness and self-importance, suggesting future generations will find them as quaint as Egyptian tomb art.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
- LIFE: A MUSICAL TEA. IN THE YEAR 1888 B.C. (Ancient Egyptian mural paintings from the ruins of Carnak.) N interpretation of these highly interesting pictures, representing the manners and cul- ture of gray antiquity, is given up by Professor Ibis in his latest essays, He says: ‘*We have here to do with the narrative of an Egyptian ambassador, who, being called to the court of a small German capital during the time of Egyptian supremacy, had an opportunity to ob- serve the peculiarity and high development of the customs of that country. In gratitude for the dis- tinguished and elegant attentions that he received, and for the perpetuation of these impressions upon the Egyptian mind, he caused several particularly characteristic episodes of his German sojourn to be pictorially represented, after sketches and notes of his own, in the family tomb, according to the cus- tom of his fathers.” ‘We present here an exact reproduction of one of these paintings, entitled ‘* A Musical Evening Tea first-class fare is demanded at the House of the Counselor of Commerce,” to is vet which is subjoined the translation by Professor Ibis of the accompanying hieroglyphic inscriptions : Arrival at the house of the host in a second-class coupe, for which Opening number: ‘Love's Anguish,” from ‘Tristan und The Tea: entertainment, with conversation by the cream of society. Isolde,” rendered by Mrs. and Miss von Hohence, with accompani- ment by Director Pedalophsky. N.B.—The piano is from the Museum of Industrial Arts at Thebes, Execution of a quartette, with a cello solo by the ten-year-old virtuoso, Carlino, with Closing symphony in the smoking-room. the effects of the same upon the educated and uneducated ear. The first real pleasure and the first real man of the evening. (From the Fliegende Blatter) comicbooks.com