Gavarni
Les Enfants Terribles - Plate 35
Printed on newsprint with text on reverse as
published in Le Charivari circa 1844.
Lithograph initialed in reverse in the stone.
The text reads:
"La canne que Papa a trouvee dans lármoire
de Maman, le jour qu'il etait si en colere elle
etait bien plus belle que ca!"
Condition: Very good. Brown spot in right
margin (outside image) Text lightly faded.
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.
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Enfans Terribles
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