FRUCTIDOR. 1992.

Little Sparta: Wild Hawthorn Press, 1992
11.5 x 11.2cm, 4pp. Folding card with a drawing of a still life by Kathleen Lindsley on the front of a basket of fruit, flowers and a crayfish. Fructidor was the twelfth month in the French Republican Calendar: named after the Latin word fructus, which means “fruit”
Each month in the republican calendar lasted 30 days and the weeks were repurposed to ten days each called decades. Further within every decade, each day had the name of an agricultural plant, except the fifth day when there was the name of an animal, and on the last the name of an agricultural tool.
In his instruction to the artist, Finlay has had same the ten fruits and flowers and animal included in the basket as in the names of the last decade of the month (the last name of the decade being actually “basket”. VG+