One, Two, Buckle My Shoe, from the series Three Young Rats and Other Rhymes

Alexander Calder made a series of 85 drawings to illustrate Three Young Rats and Other Rhymes, a whimsical book of anonymous nursery-rhymes edited by James Johnson Sweeney and published by the dealer Curt Valentin in 1944. The artist’s playful and sometimes humorous interpretations of the rhymes are rendered in a simplified and continuous linear style. These compositions recall Calder’s imaginative wire sculptures, impressively formed out of single pieces of thin wire to resemble line drawings in three-dimensional space.

The corresponding rhyme for this drawing reads:
One, Two, buckle my shoe.
Three, Four, open the door.
Five, Six, pick up sticks.
Seven, Eight, lay them straight.
Nine, Ten, a good fat hen.
Eleven, Twelve, dig and delve.
Thirteen, Fourteen, maids a-courting.
Fifteen, Sixteen, maids in the kitchen.
Seventeen, Eighteen, Maids a-waiting.
Nineteen, Twenty, my plate’s empty.
Please, mother, may I have another helping of pudding?