76 5366 Anonymous 19th cent
- Trifle foxed in blank margins.
= Early lithograph of the "original" Siamese twins Chang and Eng (1811-1874), after whom the medical condition known as "Siamese twins" was named. The twins were discovered in 1829 by Robert Hunter, who managed to convince the twins' mother and the King of Thailand (with extra payment and other perks) to allow him to take the twins with him on a tour on which they were displayed. They toured various countries in Europe (incl. The Netherlands in the 1830s) and had so much success that they eventually became wealthy and independent from Hunter. They got married with two American sisters and settled in Mount Airy (North Carolina), where they took up farming and raised a large family. Only when their financial circumstances had become stretched due to the Civil War, did they start touring again. Although they died in relative obscurity, their life had been very succesfull during the time that they exhibited themselves to the American, French and British public (despite (or perhaps even because of) the moral outcry on the part of the more conservative Americans, when they married the two American sisters Sarah and Adelaide Yates).