Les grisettes par Henry Monnier, 1829, chez Delpech éditeur Quai Voltaire n°3, BAL 98-146

Author(s): monnier, henry bonaventure (paris, 07–06–1799 - paris, 03–01–1877 — 3–6–1877), designer delpech, françois seraphin (orléans, 1778 - 1825), publisher production date: 1829 type(s) of object(s): graphic arts, print name(s): print materials and techniques: vellum paper, lithography dimensions - artwork: height: 26. 8cm width: 35. 8cm dimensions - image: height: 18. 3cm width: 18cm dimensions - mounting: height: 40cm width: 30cm description: title page: les grisettes by henry monnier, 1829, by delpech publisher quai voltaire n°3 marks, inscriptions, hallmarks: title of the work - above image: les grisettes by henry monnier registration concerning the proof - under the image: 1829 chez delpech editeur, quai voltaire n°3 iconographic description: seven young women are gathered together. Some are sitting, others standing, some are sewing. Actor, playwright and designer, henry monnier helped illustrate la comédie humaine. His engravings of administrative morals, and especially his play scenes from bureaucratic life, clearly inspired balzac for his novel la femme supérieure, renamed les employés. The same references to the mores of their time often inspired the two artists in parallel on numerous subjects as we can see in the following extract: "what, from paris to peking, would have made the knight notice, was the gentle paternity of his manners with these grisettes; they reminded him of the girls of yesteryear, these illustrious opera queens, whose fame was european for a good third of the eighteenth century. It is certain that the gentleman who once lived with this feminine nation forgotten like all great things, like the jesuits and the freebooters, like the abbots and the traders, has conquered an irresistible good nature, a gracious ease, a carelessness devoid of selfishness, all the incognito of jupiter in alcmène, of the king who makes himself the dupe of everything, who casts the superiority of his thunderbolts on all the devils, and wants to eat up his olympus in follies, in little suppers, in feminine profusions, far from juno especially. " [excerpt from the old girl, by honoré de balzac] themes / subjects / places represented: subject of society, morals, grisette, couture and needlework mode of acquisition: purchase institution: maison de balzac inventory number: bal 98-146. Date: 1829.