Renard

1871 · WRCAM43342 — Paris 1871. Handcolored lithograph 13 1/2 x 9 inches matted to 19 x 14 inches. A few light spots of foxing in margin but image quite bright and clean; a few small scuffs to uniform. Very good plus. Plate from Jules Renard Draner's series of caricatures entitled TYPES MILITAIRES: GALERIE MILITAIRE DE TOUTES LES NATIONS published from 1862 to 1871. Draner - which was his nom de plume - was a Belgian artist who settled in Paris. Though he undertook a career as a businessman he never lost his zeal for drawing and caricature and in the 1860s he undertook to satirize the world's zest for military pomp with a series of 136 color lithographs depicting various military uniforms from around the world including ten plates showing American uniforms. Though his drawings were executed with an eye toward entertainment and caricature each shows accurate military dress down to appropriate use of feathers and buttons. This image shows a portly artilleryman presumably a German settler in Missouri decked out in a blue uniform with red trims holding a plate in one hand and a fork in the other. He is in New Orleans as indicated by a poster behind him evidently as part of occupying troops during the Civil War. He directs a horrified look at the bits of red food on his plate and fork perhaps intended to be some sort of foreign or New Orleans delicacy. Quite nice and highly displayable. COLAS 891. LIPPERHEIDE 3624. HILER p.744. unknown books