Les Invalides du Sentiment: Toujours étonnant!
1853
Medium
Lithograph in black on cream wove paper
Dimensions
Image: 21.7 × 18.5 cm (8 9/16 × 7 5/16 in.); Sheet: 36.4 × 26.8 cm (14 3/8 × 10 9/16 in.)
Classification
lithograph
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
27474
Art Historical Context
**Les Invalides du Sentiment Toujours étonnant! is a witty lithograph by Paul Gavarni, a master French caricaturist of the 19th century, created in1853. Gavarni, renowned for his sharp social satires published in journals like *Le Charivari*, depicted the follies of Parisian life with humor and elegance. This work, measuring 21.7 × 18.5 cm in its image area on cream wove paper, to his series *Les Invalides du*—a clever play on Paris's Hôtel des Invalides, the veterans' hospital, reimagined as a refuge for the emotionally "wounded" in matters of love. Printed in stark black ink, the lithograph...
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...