I first learned of the remarkable Matthias Buchinger (1674-1740), it should surprise no one, from Ricky Jay's Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women, which has an entire section devoted to him. Jay was a major collector of Bunchinger's works and related material, and later published a separate book called Matthias Buchinger: 'The Greatest German Living' by Ricky Jay, Whose Peregrinations in Search of the 'Little Man of Nuremberg' Are Herein Revealed.
Buchinger was a Little Person, standing 2' 5". Further, he had no hands or feet. So what "works" can he possible have produced? you may wonder. Buchinger is most noted today for his visual art, intricate engravings that he produced with his flipper-like appendages, often featuring extended passages of micrography (tiny writing, often camouflaged into his images so you can't see them without a magnifying glass.) Look at his hair; it's all words:
Buchinger had that much patience, talent, and control -- with no digits. He also liked to build models of ships in bottles, but that was just his hobby. To help earn his keep, he garnered his greatest fame in his own time as a performing artist: he was an accurate marksman, played several musical instruments, and was known as a gifted magician who could do card tricks and the balls and cups illusion.
Born in Ansbach, Germany, Buchinger entertained the Crowned Heads of Europe and eventually settled in Ireland, where he spent his last 20 years or so. Ultimately, his most lasting legacy may have been less the limbs he didn't have, than the one limb he did have. It seems to me that women must have been very curious about his fifth appendage. He was married four times, but is documented to have had 14 children via 8 women, though he may have had as many as 70 mistresses, and certainly more children. For a time in the mid 18th century "Buchinger's Boot" was slang for a woman's vagina. Because that was where he put his "foot".
For related reading, please check out Rose's Royal Midgets and Other Little People in Vaudeville.
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