#gavarni

This ball was an exceptional celebration, given before shrovetide, in honour of the birthday of a renowned illustrator of the festivities of yesteryear, an emulator of Gavarni, whose pencil had immortalized the “chicards” and the decent of the Courtille. Thus, it must have had a more joyful, nosier, and more bohemian atmosphere than the ordinary masked balls. Many artists were in attendance, followed by a whole accompaniment of models and art students who, around midnight, began to make a huge racket.

Some of the details about the artists were cut from the de mattos translation. I’m assuming this was because they are more specifically french cultural details and references that de mattos or the publisher thought wouldn’t have been obvious to anglophone readers without context. But they are really fun details, so I am going to give them the footnote they deserve (honestly this was a whole can of worms that I was not expecting so please come on this wild ride with me).

Paul Gavarni

Paul Gavarni was the pen name of Sulpice Guillaume Chevalier who was a really famous French illustrator/caricaturist. He did a lot of satire cartoons in the newspapers as well as book illustrations for authors such as Honoré de Balzac, one of Leroux’s favourite authors.

Honoré Daumier

Leroux doesn’t give us a name for the artist whose birthday is being celebrated at the masquerade, however, he does tell us that he uses a similar style to Gavarni and that he was known for drawing the “chicards” and the “descent of the Courtille,” which has led me to the artist Honoré Daumier, who was another very famous illustrator/caricaturist, and whose birthday falls on February 26, which is usually right before the time that lent begins (marked by Shrovetide).

In 1878, there was an exhibition of his work at the 1878 World Fair/Universal Exposition, which Victor Hugo was the president of. February 1878 was also Daumier’s 70th birthday and there were several articles in the news discussing his work and contributions to French art.

Source: Gallica/BNF

This article was published on Jan 5, 1878 in L’Illustration (coincidentally also the magazine where Leroux would later publish The Mystery of the Yellow Room). It talks about his connections to Gavarni, shares a quote from Balzac comparing him to Michelangelo, and details his love of boating and how he eventually lost his sight.

Can of Worms 1: What are the “chicards”?

In English the cultural equivalent of a Chicard is a harlequin or jester of sorts, kind of like Pierrot, a clown character used in commedia dell’arte. The Chicard was essentially a character that would be dressed up in a crazy random costume, characterized by a hat with a tall feather, and would perform dances at the Paris carnivals in the mid 19th century. The costume was created by Alexandre Lévêque and took on the nickname Chicard because of its fashion or “chic.”

A series of different characters emerged at this time, each with their own associations and characteristic costume. Chicard was considered to be a very wild and expressive merchant, while Pritchard was more serious. There was also Queen Pomare and Mogador, and the rival of Chicard, Balochard. People began to dress as these characters and throw large parties where they would dance and parade in wild, dramatic, and often crude ways under the anonymity of their costumes.

In 1842 both Gavarni and Daumier illustrated a book called Physiologie du chicard which documents the idiosyncrasies of this character along with caricatures.

Can of Worms 2: What is the decent of the Courtille?

The “Descente de la Courtille” is essentially a parade that took place in Paris in the mid 19th century that was similar to Mardi Gras or Brazilian Carnival. On Ash Wednesday, people would get drunk and dress up in costumes and then parade from the city gates of Paris down through the streets to Place de l'Hôtel-de-Ville.

Paul Gavarni, Le Carnaval à Paris, Les Bals masques, 1830s.

Chez Aubert & Cie & Chez Bauger, Paris s.d. (1842 et 1839), 25,5x34cm, relié.

For sale: EditionOriginale

[trans: Won't you turn towards me?]

Fun fact, Paul Gavarni was actually a Turnchetta fan!

Personally, I'm a big fan of how he changed the intensity of the shading for Musichetta, who embraces her dark grief, and Turning Woman #3, who turns away from it (and her).

A portrait of Constance Aubert, née Junot d'Abrantès, by Paul Gavarni, December 1839.

In the appendix of a biography of Laure Junot sent to me by my friend @apurpledust, I found some poems and an article by the French writer and illustrator Paul Gavarni relating to the Junot family. Laure Junot and her daughters Josephine and Constance were all published writers, and inhabited the same artistic social circle that Gavarni did.

Article by Gavarni about the last volume of the second edition of "Memoirs of the Duchess d'Abrantès", published after her death:

Here we have arrived at the last page of these memoirs of a great lady written by a woman artist: a book in which two celebrities merge, each of which would have sufficed for many ambitions. And as struck as we are by such a rich organization, we are even more struck by the feeling of personal dignity which sustained and developed it. Madame d'Abrantés was a very rare example of this true greatness that events could not achieve. A storm carries away an empire around it, then the years come; she lost almost a throne; and yet she remained with her forehead raised above the crowd. This is what those who seek life in its beautiful aspects will first find in the books she wrote. Read! Sparkling in spirit, a pretty woman, with this great name, this ducal crown, all this gold, all this glory, with how many tributes, and with what tributes the young Duchess of Abrantés must have been surrounded! And she had to resign herself to losing all this, and, having lost all this, find in the superiority of her intelligence a consolation for so many regrets! and make a new life at fifty! another glory! Have we thought carefully about the true nobility in this courage? We cannot dispute this, we artists, born of the people, so proud of our aristocracy because it comes from us, but who see so much nobility in the work. Madame d'Abrantès worked as none of us could do. She not only wrote four times as much as a man of letters, she also drew, she acted, she composed music; or she dug the flowers in her garden, or classified her herbarium, or even embroidered a few tapestries. Must we add to these works the cares of the world, the visits with which she was besieged all day long, the long evening chats, a busy correspondence, to admire this existence so prodigiously active! These are the laudable things the second half of this life endowed with such diverse fame was filled with. The duchess's days had been brilliant, no doubt; but were these not also glorious for the author of the Amirante de Castille? Shouldn't she have seen with legitimate pride crowding around her this young swarm of artists of whom she had become the queen? These friends will say that it was a golden bee torn from the mantle of the Empire and fallen among us. Also the men who usually gathered at the Duchess of Abrantès' house were of two ages and of two kinds: white-haired men with names born from battles won, and men born with the century and becoming names with books, operas or paintings. We saw her smile at these two aristocracies who claimed her as equals, and by whom she was equally honored. Today I remember a charming remark that she said one evening about these double affections: old Mr. Suchet, the brother of the Duke of Albufera, had come unwell that evening to sit in the corner of a small living room where she runs worried about him, exclaiming: “It’s because I really like my old friends!” Then she turned to some of us, and holding out her hand, as if to stop us from being jealous, she added: “And my young ones too, at least!” We all loved him; young and old, we headed towards Chaillot to pay her a sad and last visit, a last procession, and we took her back to the cemetery of Montmartre: there, when we had a little earth thrown on this coffin which forever took this good friend from us, for every funeral oration we cried.

Below the cut are two poems written by Paul Gavarni on the album of Constance Aubert, the second daughter of Laure and Jean-Andoche Junot: