"The Sloth yawned: 'I had...waited'" from Scenes from the Private and Public Life of Animals
ca. 1837–47
Medium
Wood engraving
Dimensions
Sheet: 10 3/8 × 7 3/16 in. (26.3 × 18.2 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1959
Accession Number
59.500.592(24)
Art Historical Context
Step into the whimsical world of 19th French satire with *"The Sloth yawned 'I had...waited'"*, a wood engraving from the illustrated book *Scenes from the Private and Public Life of Animals* (ca. 1837–47). Created by novelist Honoré de Balzac, whose sharp social commentary fueled *La Comédie humaine*, illustrator J. J.ville, a master of anthropomorphic caricature, this print captures a sloth in a moment of exaggerated laziness—yawning as it laments endless waiting. Part of a collaborative series that humanizes animals to mock human follies like bureaucracy and idleness, it reflects the era's ...
About the Artist
Honoré de Balzac|J. J. Grandville (French|French) · 1799 |1803 –1850 |1847
French, Tours 1799–1850 Paris|French, Nancy 1803–1847 Vanves