Not Pussyfooting Around

Pussyfooting can mean to act cautiously or timidly. Certainly, no one could accuse the Five Barrison Sisters of pussyfooting around in their naughty, bawdy vaudeville acts, although they did show off their pussies--real live pussycats. The five buxom blond siblings in the 1890s entertained Europe and the United States music hall audiences with double-entendres and sexual suggestiveness. In their most famous act, first performed at the Wintergarten in Berlin in 1896, the sisters, clad in long frilly dresses and babyish bonnets, sang about "Mein Klein Katz" (My Little Cat) as they slowly and slyly lifted up their skirts, revealing ten black stocking-clad legs. At the end of the song, the sisters flipped up their skirts, exposing their "pussies," as a rather bewildered-looking live kitten peeked out from the crotch of each of their bloomers. 

This beautiful antique chromolithograph die cut was certainly based on the above publicity photograph of the sisters exposing their pussies. The artist exercised a little license in brightly coloring their costumes, but was otherwise faithful to the photograph. Roughly 7.5 inches tall and wide, there is no mark other than "2000" stamped on the lower right corner. I wonder whether this was a promotional piece for the Barrisons or just another example of a company being "inspired" by the self-proclaimed "wickedest girls in the world," but not enough to actually pay them any royalties.