Easter 1909
Psyche wears an Easter bonnet and admires her reflection in a small pool of water with irises and lilies.
Comments and Context
The back-story of Puck‘s Easter Issue’s cover is related to its year, 1909. The artist, Gordon Grant, was Puck‘s answer to Life Magazine’s Charles Dana Gibson, creator of the glamorous Gibson Girl. As “American Girls” began gracing the covers of virtually every magazine of every category at the time — drawn or painted by the likes of Gibson and Grant; James Montgomery Flagg; Coles Phillips; Howard Chandler Christy; C. Jay Taylor; Penrhyn Stanlaws; and others — Puck even got a little saucy with an Easter theme.
But Grant did not seek to titillate with a scantily-clad maiden. The obligatory humorous touch was an Easter bonnet on a wood nymph. But the context of the pose and woman herself was a famous painting whose popularity swept popular culture in nearly every aspect. Like the semi-scandalous September Morn two years later would create a sensation, the canvas by the German Academician Paul Thumann (1834-1908) had first been exhibited at the 1893 Columbian Exposition (World’s fair) in Chicago and was ubiquitous in prints, posters, cards, and on calendars. The original title addressed the Greek goddess, Psyche at Nature’s Mirror.
