Artistic Uses
The fable was a favourite in England and was put to popular use on 18th century china by the Fenton pottery and in the 19th century by the Wedgwood pottery. This was on its Aesop series of coloured plates, signed by Emile Lessore in the 1860s. Minton's pottery also used the fable on a series of Aesop tiles a little later. In France a biscuit porcelain figure group illustrating the fable was issued by the Haffreingue porcelain factory at Boulogne between 1857-1859. The ox is modeled lying on the ground and looking down at the frog directly in front.
Other uses have been the appearance of the fable on stamps during the centenary of La Fontaine's death in 1995. In France it was on one of a strip of six 2,80 franc stamps, each illustrating a different fable; in Albania the fable appears by itself on the 25 leke stamp and as part of the over-all design of the 60 leke commemorative.
Among the composers who have set the fable are the following:
- Charles Lecocq, the third piece in his Six Fables de Jean de la Fontaine for voice and piano (1900)
- Mabel Wood Hill in her "Aesop's Fables Interpreted Through Music" (1920)
- Marcelle de Manziarly, the third piece in Trois Fables de La Fontaine (1935) for voice and piano
- Paul Bonneau in 10 Fables de La Fontaine for a cappella duet (1957)
- Marie-Madeleine Duruflé in 6 Fables de La Fontaine (1960) for a cappella choir
- Jean Françaix for 4 male voices and piano (1963)
- Edward Hughes, as the third in his ten Songs from Aesop's Fables for children's voices and piano (1965), in a version by Peter Westmore
- Andre Asriel, Der Frosch und der Ochse, the second in his 6 Fabeln nach Aesop for mixed a cappella voices (1972)
- Isabelle Aboulker among the seven in her children's operetta La Fontaine et le Corbeau (1977)
- Claude Ballif, the third of his Chansonettes : 5 Fables de La Fontaine for small mixed choir (Op.72, Nº1 1995)
- Xavier Benguerel i Goto, the sixth piece in his 7 Fabulas de la Fontaine for orchestra and narration (in both Catalan and Spanish translations)
Read more about this topic: The Frog And The Ox
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