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La Fontaine, Goya, Grandville: A Study of Visual and Literary Sources

This article argues that the French caricaturist and draughtsman Jean Ignace Isidore Gérard, known as J. J. Grandville (1803–47), used plates from Goya’s Caprichos (1799) as inspiration for his illustrations to Jean de La Fontaine’s Fables and Cent Proverbes (1845), as well as other illustrated books. In turn, it is also noted that La Fontaine’s Fables were the source of some of Goya’s Caprichos and Desastres de la guerra (Disasters of War) prints (1810–14). Examples of Grandville copying Goya, as well as of Goya using images from La Fontaine are here presented.