JJ Grandville, Metamorphosis Day, Lithograph and Watercolor, 1830s

Les Métamorphoses du Jour is an original Modern Artwork realized in the 1830s by the French artist Grandville. Original Lithograph hand watercolor. Inscripted on the lower central margin. Dimensions: cm 27 x 36. Mint conditions. Jean Ignace Isidore Gérard (Nancy, Meurthe-et-Moselle, 1803 – Vanves, 1847). The name ''Grandville'' was his grandparents' professional stage name. Grandville received his first instruction in drawing from his father, a painter of miniatures. At the age of twenty-one he moved to Paris, and soon afterwards published a collection of lithographs entitled Les Tribulations de la petite proprieté. Grandville's ability for political provocation made his work much in demand. He worked in a wide variety of formats, from his first job illustrating the parlor game Old Maid, to illustrated newspaper strips of which he was a master. His illustrations for Le Diable à Paris (''The Devil In Paris''; 1844–46) were used by Walter Benjamin for his study of that city as an urban organism. One of Grandville's supreme achievements, at a time when French printing technology was ascendant, was Les Fleurs Animées, a series of images that are both poetic and satirical.