Grotesque on the Anheuser-Busch Brewery in Saint Louis, Missouri. Photo by duluoz cats via Flickr (Creative Commons license)
I don’t come across either gargoyles or grotesques on commercial buildings very often in my research, which is why I so greatly appreciate them on the rare occasions that they do come along. You don’t typically think of history and important architecture when someone mentions the word “Budweiser”, but the Anheuser-Busch Brewery and headquarters in Saint Louis, Missouri is a National Register of Historic Places-listed complex that was built in 1875. It has the most adorable chicken-eating, beer-drinking fox grotesque; he is dressed in German folk attire in reference to Anheuser-Busch founder Adolphus Busch’s German origins.
Alexandra Kiely, aka A Scholarly Skater, is an art historian based in the northeastern United States. She loves wandering down the dark and dusty corners of art history and wholeheartedly believes in visual art's ability to enrich every person's life.
Her favorite periods of art history are 19th-century American painting and medieval European art and architecture. When she not looking at, reading about, writing about, or teaching art, she's probably ice dancing or reading.
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A Scholarly Skater 