The Literary Life
n.d.
Medium
Lithograph in black on ivory wove paper
Dimensions
Image: 23.7 × 19.8 cm (9 3/8 × 7 13/16 in.); Sheet: 34.6 × 25.7 cm (13 5/8 × 10 1/8 in.)
Classification
lithograph
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
78855
Art Historical Context
Step into the satirical world of Charles Vernier with *The Literary Life*, an lithograph that captures the quirks of 19th-century literary culture. Printed in bold black ink on creamy ivory wove paper, work measures a compact 23.7 × 19.8 cm for the image itself, on a slightly larger sheet of 346 × 25.7 cm. Housed in the Art Institute of Chicago's Prints Drawings Department, it exemplifies the artist's flair for caricature, a specialty of French illustrators during the July Monarchy and Second Empire eras. Lithography, the medium here, revolutionized printmaking in the 1800s by allowing artist...