Nello & Patrasche

Ouida – Maria Louise Ramé

1872

Nello & Patrasche

In chocolate shops you can find our Antwerp hands, but also chocolates and cookies with a boy and a dog. You can ask any person from Antwerp who they are and there will be only a few who can answer you. Only a few guides and other strange people could tell you the story of Nello & Patrasche. The story is well known in Japan and now also a little bit in Antwerp. Since a new beautiful statue of sculptor Batist Vermeulen has appeared on the Handschoenmarkt in front of the cathedral, the story has been known a little more. This week is Christmas, it is a Christmas story, so … Merry Christmas!

Ouida

The writer Ouida, Maria Louise Ramé, was born in 1839 in England. She traveled through Belgium where she saw child labor and dog abuse. She wanted to raise this issue and wrote about it in her books. Ouida wrote about 40 books during her lifetime, most romanticized and focused on sensation. Like Nello, she died in poverty in 1908 in Italy. After her death a fountain was placed as a tribute where dogs and horses could drink.

It is a very sad story that is sometimes rewritten in Europe to a “happy ending”. Below you can find a Nello & Patrasche film. You can also read the story via Gutenberg.