Three Pigs Went to Market

Though today best known as the father of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, Charles Doyle was an artist and illustrator who gained some success in his lifetime. His most famous work includes a large group of imaginative fairy pictures, many of which he made while resident at the Montrose Royal Lunatic Asylum, where he was treated for depression, alcoholism, and epilepsy toward the end of his life. Here, he tackles more typical nursery rhyme material in the tale of three pigs whose trip to market ends in disaster. Doyle exploits the common nursery rhyme trope of animals acting as humans to comic effect - though finely dressed in breeches and waistcoats, the pigs still act like animals, fighting and ultimately ruining the eggs and milk they had just purchased.