(BLACK MEMORABILIA.) VARGAS, MRS ALFONSO CONCEPCION. The Praline Woman and the Banana Man. Two figures made of cloth and beeswax, approximately 5 inches high, and on their original wooden pedestals; the finger tips of the figures have been lost, as so often the case, being the most fragile extremities. Otherwise the pieces are in exceptional condition. Housed in a specially made lucite case. New Orleans, 1920s-1930s
These exquisitely detailed figures are the creation of Mrs. Alfonso Concepcion Vargas, a longtime figure in old New Orleans. Mrs. Vargas stated in a newspaper interview that the figures "are my own ideas of the characters that I have seen on the streets of New Orleans since I was a girl." Mrs. Vargas was seventy-four at the time of the interview. She was the daughter-in-law of Francisco Vargas. The Vargas family created the "King Cotton" sculpture for the 1904 St. Louis Exposition.
