Public And Private Life Of Animals
Scenes from the Private and Public Life of the Animals, by P. J. Stahl and illustrated by J. J. Grandville, 1842. This is a collection of anthro animal works from some of the best writers in France at the time, which means cutting edge literaria. Here is a thoughtful review -
Les acteurs une fois en scène, il restait à les faire parler. Les
écrivains distingués qui ont associé leur plume au crayon de Grandville
ont renfermé dans un cadre, dont l’idée première nous a paru sans
précédent et tout à fait originale, le tableau gaiement sérieux de nos
mœurs contemporaines. Ils ont su éviter les voies usées et monotones de
l’apologue et de la physiologie descriptive, et peindre sous une forme
nouvelle et piquante les hommes par les animaux.*
Ah, tres bon. And now for these pictures!
A poplar dueling spot, the Bois de Boulogne was right outside of Paris. The rabbit is not at home with murder weapons but the cock is. This rabbit is going to die.
This is probably more of a comment about your neighbors in Paris than social pretensions.
The petite-bourgeousie goes shopping for shoes. Why on earth this sign is in English I have not a clue but there must be a reason, and that reason has something to do with the monkey doing the fitting.
A penguin is ruler of Antarctica. The dodo in the foreground is not auspicious. The king of France at this time was Louis-Philippe, and not very many people were happy with him, to say the least. This is a comment on the monarchy, and is equivalent to the American hobo expression 'Emperor of the North Pole', meaning a powerless nobody. What the fish bodies as standards mean I have no idea but it is not a compliment.
Oh, my, these hot blooded Spaniards. Dead cat coming up!
Teachers with their young students, presumably middle class or with pretensions in that area. No political meaning that I can find, but again, it ain't no compliment.
An aging king attended by his court. The limp snake standard is a comment on long gone virility. The truculent looking lion club may be King Louis Philippe's grandson, his designated heir, whose descendants are considered by many to be the legitimate line of succession.
Teachers with their young students, presumably middle class or with pretensions in that area. No political meaning that I can find, but again, it ain't no compliment.
An aging king attended by his court. The limp snake standard is a comment on long gone virility. The truculent looking lion club may be King Louis Philippe's grandson, his designated heir, whose descendants are considered by many to be the legitimate line of succession.
An upper class male as a bird of paradise. The nerve!
Possibly a comment on the water supply, except the French did not drink the stuff, nor do I.
A young lady must pick between dull virtue or racy hot sin and receive wonderful jewelry into the bargain. Who will she choose? I don't know what the industrial grade smokestacks represent but the name 'Baal-Melkart' would not be out of line.
A teaching hospital. The students are all scavengers of the dead.
Crime and Expiation, drawn 12 days before his death.
Jean Ignace Isidore Gerard, 1803 - 1847.
Uh...I may have taken some of this from the Public Domain Review. https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/public-and-private-life-of-animals-1877
Good editors borrow. Great ones steal!
* The actors, once on stage, it remained to make them speak. The distinguished writers who associated their pen with the Grandville pencil have enclosed their creations within a frame, the first idea of which struck us as unprecedented and quite original, the cheerfully serious picture of our contemporary mores. They were able to avoid the worn-out and monotonous ways of apologue and descriptive physiology, and paint men through animals in a new and pungent form.
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