Lithographs by Gavarni
from Le Charivari

Antique Lithographs printed on newsprint with text on reverse as published in Le Charivari.

These prints come from the series entitled "Les Enfants Terribles" published around 1844. In each image a child innocently (or perhaps mischieviously) reveals to an adult an embarressing truth - the affairs of the parents, or a disparging phrase that is being used by others to discribe the uncle...

Click on the images for more information and larger photos.

About Paul Gavarni

Gavarni was the pseudonym of Paul Sulpice Guillaume Chevalier (1804–66) a prolific French caricaturist and lithographer. One of the most popular artists of the 19th Century, Gavarni first became known for his amusing fashion drawings, which appeared in La Mode.

Gavarni led the classic bohemian lifestyle that he so often depicted in his work, drinking, dancing and socializing into the Paris night. He developed close friendships with many other leading artists and writers of his time including Honoré Balzac, Charles Dickens and William Makepeace Thackeray. His works were collected by Queen Victoria, as well as by Edgar Degas and Vincent Van Gogh and influenced the work of the the American artist James McNeil Whistler. At one time he was known as the "most elegant man in France."

Gavarni's many-year collaboration with the popular magazine Le Charivari - to which Daumier and other caricaturists of the day also contributed - represented the pinnacle of his career. Working continuously from 1838 to 1844 he produced over 900 prints illustrating Parisian life with great wit, charm and satire.

But Gavarni also had a serious side. In 1847 he spent a year in London, turning his back on London high society which courted him, in favor of the impoverished milieus around Whitechapel whose residents he depicted in some of his best work.