Rice, Dan. Dan Rice’s Blind Horse “Excelsior, Jr.” Cincinnati: Strobridge & Co. Lith., ca. 1868. Fine lithograph of the exceptional performing horse and successor to Excelsior. Text flowing from his mouth states, “I am blind, yet can speak.” Framed to 24 x 20”. Linen backed. Not examined out of frame. This lithograph is perhaps the first poster Strobridge printed for the circus business, as well as one of its earliest pictorial prints. In a letter from Nelson Strobridge, president of the firm, to his son or nephew James Strobridge, dated July 23, 1934, he wrote that he was given complimentary tickets to an 1868 exhibition of Excelsior “because of a black and tint lithograph, about 19 x 24, we made of Excelsior with Dan Rice… So, if it is true we went to the performance on complimentary tickets given for having made that lithograph of Excelsior, we can say we made a pictorial lithograph as early as 1868.” Excelsior Jr. succeeded the “great Artiste-Horse of America” Excelsior, who died in 1859, and was regarded as the more talented of the two. The funeral procession for Excelsior Jr., in 1877, purportedly stretched a mile long.