Matthias Buchinger

You will not be surprised to know that among my books I have a copy of Learned Pigs & Fireproof Women: A History of Unique, Eccentric & Amazing Entertainers by Ricky Jay. I was surprised, however, when that title showed up in the very sophisticated publication,The New Yorker. Let’s just admit that the title is a trifle tacky (which is why I own the book), and the name of the author does not have the look of a name that one might associate with a more serious topic, say the scholarship of Sanskrit.

Our subject for today is one of those profiled in Learned Pigs.. and he is also the subject of two recent essays in The New Yorker because he was on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art: “Wordplay: Matthias Buchinger’s Drawings from the Collection of Ricky Jay”. At this time, a good description of what was included in the exhibition still remains on the museum site.

A description of Buchinger is also found there and you will quickly be able to find others, but I will provide one which will indicate why he was called “The Little Man of Nuremberg” as well as “The Greatest German Living” (c 1700):

"This extraordinary person was a german, & little more that the trunk of a man, a body with only a Head and upper Arms, having an excrescence at one Elbow, bearing some resemblance to a Thumb; the lower part of his body was cased in strong Leather, & he twisted himself about the Floor with considerable agility, raising one side a little & turning on the other as a Pivot."

In short, he was only 29” tall. As for “the greatest” part, you will soon see that this man without appendages had many talents.

The skills he possessed as a magician, conjurer and sleight-of-hand artist are undoubtedly those that first attracted Ricky Jay, whose name was perhaps too lightly dismissed. He (Jay) is described in The New Yorker articles as a “superlative card magician” and a “ sui-generis conjurer, scholar, storyteller, actor, antiquarian collector and incorrigible perfectionist…” Mr. Jay offers many descriptions of Buchinger’s performances which reveal that he could juggle and more:

“He performed on a Bavarian folk instrument called the hackebret, the dulcimer, trumpet, bagpipe, guitar, oboe, drum, kettledrum, flute, and strange flute (thought to be the German transverse flute) - which he tried to combine mechanically with the violin as a separate instrument. He shaved himself, threaded a needle, ground corn into flour, and carved figures in wood. Paris witnessed the “Little Man cut paper in severall curious shapes, forms and figures...load and discharge a pistol and never did fail of hitting the mark, he darted a sword at a mark at great distance.”

Such skills, particularly when performed by someone “born without Hands and Feet” are clearly incredible, but they are not the focus of the exhibition,“Wordplay…”

Buchinger could paint and draw and write. He was also a gifted calligrapher and even a “micro-calligrapher”. If one looks closely at his paintings one finds examples of his minute writing buried in the curls of the wigs worn by his subjects. Apparently you need a magnifying glass to see the Ten Commandments done in minute writing even though he did not use one to produce them. Exactly how he did some of these things still remains a mystery, although the facts that he did them are not disputed.

But wait, there is more. On p.56 of Learned Pigs… Jay notes that Buchinger’s name appears in one of the “strangest terms ever recorded in a slang dictionary.” It is found  in Spear’s Slang and Euphemism and in Grose’s Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue and it is “Buckinger’s Boot” (in England he was known as Matthew Buckinger). Apparently linguists and etymologists puzzled over this phrase. You will never figure it out.

It is unsurprising that I do also possess a copy of  Grose’s Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (the 1811 ed. Published by Digest Books in 1971). Here is the entry for “Buckinger’s Boot”.

“The monosyllable. Matthew Buckinger was born without hands and legs; notwithstanding which he drew coats of arms very neatly, and could write the Lord’s Prayer within the compass of a shilling; he was married to a tall handsome woman, and traversed the country, shewing himself for money.”

Still puzzled? Here is the entry for “monosyllable” in the same book:
“Monosyllable. A woman’s commodity.”

We are getting closer. The definition in Grose of “commodity”.

“Commodity. A woman’s commodity; the private parts of a modest woman, and the public parts of a prostitute.”

According to Jay, Buchinger had four wives and around 14 children so it was clear that he did have one appendage after all, and that it worked well. If you still can’t figure it out, see p. 56 in Learned Pigs & Fireproof Women...