Jésus! Il vient de me passer une bête...
1842
Medium
hand-colored lithograph on wove paper
Dimensions
image: 19.8 × 15.6 cm (7 13/16 × 6 1/8 in.) sheet: 35.7 × 27.4 cm (14 1/16 × 10 13/16 in.)
Classification
Department
CG-E
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift in memory of Alan Ostrow
Accession Number
2019.184.10
Art Historical Context
**Jésus! Il vient de passer une bête...***Paul Gavarni, 1842* Hand-colored lithograph on w paper Step into the bustling streets of 1840s Paris with Paul Gavarn *Jésus! Il vient me passer une bête... (1842), a hand-colored lithograph brimming with the artist's signature wit. Gavarni (1804–1866), a leading French caricatur, captured the quirks of Parisian life in magazines like *Le Charivari*, blending sharp social observation with lively vignettes of everyday folk—from workers to flâneurs. Created during the July Monarchy, this print reflects a era of rapid urbanization and class tensions,...
About the Artist
Paul Gavarni
Paul Gavarni, born Sulpice Guillaume Chevalier on January 13, 1804, in Paris to a cooper father from Burgundy and mother Marie-Monique Thiémet—whose brother, painter Guillaume Thiémet, served as his godfather—began his career far from the art world. As a youth, he worked in a machine factory and studied mechanical drawing at the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers in 1818, followed by evening classe...