James McManus Poker: Play It Close to the Muzzle and Paws on the Table, The New York Times, 3 December 2005, B23, 2005, 2005b
"Cassius Marcellus Coolidge . . . born 1844 . . .
". . . received no formal art education, yet was placing sketches in his local newspaper by the time he was 20. He went on to become an accomplished cartoonist while pursuing a variety of careers in banking, education and journalism. He is also credited with inventing what he called Comic Foregrounds, placards of headless musclemen and bathing beauties that tourists could stick their own faces through to be photographed.
"Between 1906 and his death in 1934, Coolidge produced 16 pictures of dogs playing poker for the Brown & Bigelow company, a purveyor of calendars . . ."