Flowers Partying and smoking. Grandville Les Fleurs Animées c1902.

by Grandville, Jean-Jacques

Marigold, Everlasting Daisy and Tobacco partying, antique print. Enjoying themselves while bespectacled older Myrtle looks concerned and male Olive, standing on a pulpit with one hand clenched and the other on his hip.

Colour-printed engraving highlighted with gum arabic after a drawing by French illustrator and caricaturist Jean-Ignace-Isidore Gérard (1803-1847) for Les Fleurs Animées (Animated Flowers) first published in Paris circa 1847. This engraving was published in Spain c1902.

From an early age Jean-Jacques was tutored in drawing by his father, miniature-artist Jean-Baptiste Gérard. Jean-Jacques adopted the name 'Grandville' from his father’s actor parents who were known as 'Gérard de Grandville'. Flowers were given human characters, that ranged from charming to gruesome, depending on Grandville's state of mind. Grandville acquired fame by adding animal and bird heads to people's bodies, and as here, by portraying flowers as ladies with personalities. His 'animations' were so popular, that they were reissued a number of times in the United States, Belgium, Germany and Spain.

This imaginative engraving of flowers personified is mounted between antique-white ragmat conservation board, and covered with cellophane for protection until framed. Page size is 185 x 115mm (7.25 x 4.5 inches). External size for framing is 260 x 230mm (10.25 x 9 inches).