Les Invalides du Sentiment: Philibert le mauvais sujet
1853
Medium
Lithograph in black on cream wove paper
Dimensions
Image: 21.8 × 18.6 cm (8 5/8 × 7 3/8 in.); Sheet: 36.5 × 26.8 cm (14 3/8 × 10 9/16 in.)
Classification
lithograph
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
27461
Art Historical Context
Paul Gavarni's *Les Invalides du Sentiment Philibert le mauvais sujet* (1853) is a witty lithograph capturing the satirical spirit of mid-19th-century Parisian life. Created in black ink on cream w paper, this print measures a modest 21.8 × 18.6 cm, designed for affordable dissemination through the booming illustrated press. Gavarni, a master caricaturist associated with the Romantic era and publications like *Le Charivari*, specialized in lithographs that poked fun at bourgeois manners, fashion, and romantic follies. The title evokes the Hôtel des Invalides—France's home for wounded veterans...
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...