Les-Parents-Terribles series: I can't stand for that kind of mustaches
1853
Medium
Lithograph in black on cream wove paper
Dimensions
Image: 19.4 × 16.1 cm (7 11/16 × 6 3/8 in.); Sheet: 35.9 × 27.2 cm (14 3/16 × 10 3/4 in.)
Classification
lithograph
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
10959
Art Historical Context
Paul Gavarni, a leading French caricaturist of the 19th century created *Les Parents Terribles: I can't stand for that kind of mustaches* 1853. This lithograph captures Gavarni's signature satirical wit, poking fun at bourgeois family dynamics and fashion fads during the July Monarchy's waning years and the dawn of the Second Empire. The title's exasperated quip likely skewers a parent's disapproval of a son's trendy mustache—a symbol of dandyish masculinity in mid-19th-century Paris—highlighting generational clashes over style and propriety. Printed in black ink on cream wove paper (image: 1...
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...