"Sir, I offer you my respects and my daughter" from Metamorphoses of the Day
Medium
Hand-colored lithograph
Dimensions
Sheet: 5 in. × 9 5/16 in. (12.7 × 23.7 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1958
Accession Number
58.512.20
Art Historical Context
Step into the whimsical yet biting world of J.J. Grandville, master French caricaturist, with his 1829 hand-colored lithograph *Sir, I offer you respects and my daughter* from the series *Metoses of the Day*. during France's Restoration era, this petite print (just 5 by 9 inches) captures Grandville's signature style: fantastical hybrids of humans and animals satirizing social customs. Here, the title evokes a comically formal marriage proposal, likely featuring anthropomorphic figures to mock the era's arranged unions, class pretensions, and bourgeois ambitions. Grandville's innovation lay i...