# Old woodprint identification **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 16, 2004, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-woodprint-identification/240349 "2004-04-16T12:50:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2004, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-woodprint-identification/240349/1 "2004-04-16T12:50:05Z")
This may belong in Café Society, but I’m looking for a factual answer. There is an old woodcut that depicts a sleigh racing through a forest with a wolf in hot pursuit. Between the sleigh and the wolf is a baby in mid-fall. Did the sleigh hit a bump, causing the baby to fall out? Or did the people in the sleigh toss the baby out so that the wolf would stop chasing them? Sweet. What is the name of the woodcut? Who made it? When was it made? ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2004, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-woodprint-identification/240349/2 "2004-04-16T12:51:14Z")
“Woodprint”? Need more coffee. If a mod sees this, please change the title to “wood_cut_”. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2004, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-woodprint-identification/240349/3 "2004-04-24T16:25:56Z")
So… This doesn’t sound familiar? ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2004, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-woodprint-identification/240349/4 "2004-04-24T17:23:10Z")
> [@Johnny L.A.](#): > > So… This doesn’t sound familiar? IIRC it’s a fairly well known painting or illustration of a sleigh being chased on the Russian steppes re the scene you described. Nero Wolfe had this painting in his office. I think it’s called “Throwing the Baby to the Wolves” but there are no google hits for this name. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2004, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-woodprint-identification/240349/5 "2004-04-25T02:31:05Z")
Thanks for looking, **astro**. I didn’t have any luck either. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2004, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-woodprint-identification/240349/6 "2004-04-25T03:31:56Z")
This may get you a bit further: [Lighten The Troika](http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?LightenTheTroika) ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2015, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-woodprint-identification/240349/7 "2015-09-08T21:51:55Z")
OK, it’s been over a decade, but this popped into my head again. Still can’t find it. ---
**Author:** ![donkeyoatey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47c2d/32.png) [@donkeyoatey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/donkeyoatey)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2015, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-woodprint-identification/240349/8 "2015-09-08T23:32:13Z")
Perhaps an artist’s interpretation of this: > [@](#): > > FIG. 2. An engraving published in Frederic Lacroix, Les mysteres de la Russie (Paris: Pagnerre,1845) depicting wolves attacking a Russian peasant woman as she is about to throw one of her three children to pursuing wolves. The description in The Englishwoman in Russia (1855) corresponds precisely to this visual representation: a single peasant woman, a sledge shaped much like a boat drawn by a single horse instead of the typical Russian troika, and a village in the distance From [here.](http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2707&context=greatplainsquarterly) ---
**Author:** ![cybersnark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b9e5f3/32.png) [@cybersnark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cybersnark)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2015, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-woodprint-identification/240349/9 "2015-09-09T00:59:39Z")
Was Hitler in the sleigh?😃 [http://cdn.c.photoshelter.com/img-get/I0000yq9p0skThv8/s/900/720/InterWar-Cartoons-Punch-Magazine-Bernard-Partridge-1939-08-30-239.jpg](http://cdn.c.photoshelter.com/img-get/I0000yq9p0skThv8/s/900/720/InterWar-Cartoons-Punch-Magazine-Bernard-Partridge-1939-08-30-239.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![cybersnark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b9e5f3/32.png) [@cybersnark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cybersnark)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2015, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-woodprint-identification/240349/10 "2015-09-09T01:09:44Z")
Or maybe you’re just recalling Gorey’s Desmond, secretly hoping for wolves [Desmond](https://www.cardcow.com/434698/d-desmond-thrown-out-sleigh-art/) ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2015, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-woodprint-identification/240349/11 "2015-09-09T01:34:51Z")
> [@cybersnark](#): > > Or maybe you’re just recalling Gorey’s Desmond, secretly hoping for wolves > > [Desmond](https://www.cardcow.com/434698/d-desmond-thrown-out-sleigh-art/) That’s probably related to the Russian story, isn’t it? Thrown from a sleigh is an odd fate to be deadly. He might have conflated Gorey and Lacroix. ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2015, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-woodprint-identification/240349/12 "2015-09-09T01:53:31Z")
I found another print on [this licensing site](http://licensing.pixels.com/featured/man-in-horse-driven-sleigh-troika-wolves-attack-c1900-a-wierusz-kowalski-.html). There is no sacrifice of baby or bride, just a gun. In fact, more of the images I’ve found so far involve bullets than babies; none involve brides. I noticed something interesting, [the sky in this painting](http://artyzm.com/e_obraz.php?id=6568) is similar to those mentioned in the NYT article about the effects of the explosion of Tambora, which described wide-spread famine resulting from the volcano. And you are on the first page of the DuckDuckGo search for “thrown to wolves from Troika”, so there’s that. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2015, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/old-woodprint-identification/240349/13 "2015-09-09T03:00:27Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > OK, it’s been over a decade, but this popped into my head again. Still can’t find it. Don’t give up hope; [I finally found an image after 11 years.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=64783)