The is a rare, I believe very early (c. 1850s) German block cube puzzle, making six different lithographed images, each captioned at the bottom in German, French, Italian, English and Spanish. My photos show four of the six images--with some recurrent characters from one to the next, including a doll, who gets paraded out and dragged around--with the thought I'd leave the additional two as a surprise! They have lost their original box, which would have included prints of each image, but happily systematically turning each block in one direction gets you to the next image. The closest matches I've found (not the same, but in the same manner) were produced by Halder & Cronberger of Stuttgart, Germany.
I believe the lithographed images on these blocks were hand colored, and they remain in very good condition, with paper loss on just a few blocks. 48 blocks total, making this a large, and I think very charming example. Total size is 10" x 7 3/4" x 1 1/4"; individual cubes measure 1 1/4" per side. Shipped in the box I found them in, which is the bottom half of an old cardboard box into which they fit well.
