Le Paradis

Le Paradis is an amusing original color lithograph on paper, realized by the French artist Edmond Lavrate  (Orleans, 1829 - Paris 1888).

Original Title: Le Paradis séjour du bonheur simpiternel

Signed vertically on plate on lower right margin in the cloud.

A really amusing satiric and anti-clerical print representing a modern allegory of the Paradise: to each character corresponds an identification number with a detailed capture. We could understand who are the characters in the Modern sky of Paradise. 

In excellent conditions except for some signs of the time, the original sheet is glued on Canson cardboard sheet.

Gaspard Edmond Lavrate (Orleans, 1829 - Paris 1888)
French lithographer, anticlerical draftsman, inventor of the "affiche" advertisements.
With the advent of the Republic, the draftsman attacks the figure of Napoleon III. One of his legendary watercolors, with the caption "Badinguet going to war, Rolled Sedan", is seized in 1872 at Leloup, print dealer, (rue de la Lune in Paris). This merchant is then described by a police report as "known for his political exaltation," that is, advanced Republican.
 Émile Bayard says about Lavrate in 1900 with this words: "Here is a very crude charge, of a delicate taste but which nevertheless makes you laugh with its intention of overflowing gaiety, its boundless fantasy, thanks to the very accessible nature of the common heavy sketches, illuminated with the devil, underlined by a very appropriate legend. His colored boards still cover the walls in the country.

The Anticlerical draftsman is described by Guillaume Doizy, "In addition to the republican anticlerical political caricature, Lavrate invents the anticlerical caricature of morals, by attacking a clergy, which, in its sociological diversity, will become the target of the free-thinking press after 1900. of the religious question, Lavrate appears as a forerunner. We understand why he was, after 1900, extensively reissued by the militant press. "