April Fools from Howard Pyle, Part 4

I’m overwhelmed by fools - Howard Pyle’s fools, I mean: he just drew and painted too many to show all at once. But here’s one more, in yet another medium and style. It’s from “The Castle of Content” by James Branch Cabell (Harper’s Monthly Magazine, August 1903). It was titled “He thought of his love” in the magazine, but was exhibited as “Idleness.“ I saw the original oil a few years ago and noticed that it had been unscrupulously cut down (to fit a frame, probably!) and that the colors of the fool’s tights were reversed. I gather that Pyle, in his haste to finish, forgot which leg was green and which one was red and that the printer corrected his mistake.