Author(s):
monnier, henry bonaventure (paris, 07–06–1799 - paris, 03–01–1877 — 3–6–1877), designer
delpech, françois seraphin (orléans, 1778 - 1825), printer-lithographer
other title: grisettes (series title)
production date: 1829
type(s) of object(s): graphic arts, print
name(s): print
materials and techniques: vellum paper, watercolor, lithography
dimensions - artwork:
height: 25. 8cm
width: 35. 1cm
dimensions - image:
height: 16. 4cm
width: 17. 2cm
dimensions - mounting:
height: 40cm
width: 30cm
description:
plate from the series les grisettes by henry monnier, 1829, in paris, from imp. Lithog. From delpech, quai voltaire n°3
marks, inscriptions, hallmarks:
inscription - above the line in the middle: "grisettes" under the line on the left: "henry monnier" and on the right: "i. Lith. De delpech"
legend - below the image: conclusion
iconographic description:
two young people are each seated in a corner of a neat room. The young woman is leaning on a small table, her face closed. The young man is with his arms dangling and his legs outstretched, staring into space. The room is furnished with a screen hiding a bed, a chest of drawers on which is placed an oil lamp, several small frames on the walls, a bench. 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: "his attachment never left the forms of passion. He never made one feel in his interior this protective force that women love so much, because for his it would have resembled pity. Finally, through the most ingenious adulation, he treated her as his equal and let escape these amiable sulks that a a man allows himself towards a beautiful woman as if to defy her superiority his lips were always embellished by the smile of happiness, and his words were always full of sweetness. He loved his josephine for her and for himself, with that ardor which involves a continual praise of the qualities and beauties of a woman. Fidelity, often the effect of a social principle, of a religion or of a calculation in husbands, seemed involuntary, and did not go without the gentle. Flatteries of the spring of love. " [excerpt from the search for the absolute, by honoré de balzac]
themes / subjects / places represented:
subject of society, morals, grisette, domestic interior
mode of acquisition: purchase
institution: maison de balzac
inventory number: bal 98-152. Date: 1829.
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