Oscar Edward Cesare, 1885 - 1948 - Teddy Roosevelt and Oscar Edward Cesare - c. 1916 - T-Shirt

A pencil and ink cartoon shows a mounted moose skeleton standing upright on a wooden crate labelled Extinct, with a caption quoting Hamlet: "Alas poor Yorick!"

Visual Elements & Composition

The drawing is built on cream paper with ink-black outlines and light pencil grey shading. The skeleton dominates the centre, its skull crowned with large, branching antlers and its ribs and limbs rendered in clear, open line. The crate beneath it carries two printed labels, Moose and Extinct. At lower left, a small, stout figure in a jacket and breeches holds a bundled object, while a laurel wreath lies on the ground at the foot of the crate. Dense hatching on the right suggests a dark backdrop, and the signature "Cesare" sits near the base.

Meaning & Symbolism

Oscar Cesare (1885-1948) worked as a political and public-affairs caricaturist for American newspapers, and his 1910s cartoons made their argument with a few precise objects and a short caption. Here the stuffed trophy and the laurel wreath signal commemoration, while the word Extinct turns that tribute into irony. Hamlet's lament over Yorick's skull is a familiar mourning for a figure once full of life, and the caption applies it to a museum specimen. The satire lies in the gap between public honour and the animal's fate. The drawing is catalogued with the name of Theodore Roosevelt, a figure closely tied to big-game hunting and natural history, which gives the cartoon its target.

Carried on the Chest

This is a drawing built for close reading, with a caption to get through and labels to find, so it suits a tee worn in conversation rather than glanced at from across a room. The moose, the crate and the single quoted line sit together as one composition, letting the joke land at the same scale it was drawn. Wearing it puts a century-old newspaper commentary on natural history and public memorial in plain view.