The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of March 28, 2024

An Insect Ball

An Insect Ball

1835
(French, 1803–1847)
Sheet: 12.5 x 21.3 cm (4 15/16 x 8 3/8 in.)
Location: not on view

Description

J.-J. Grandville became best known for fantastical drawings like this one, in which insects act like humans. Here, smaller creatures above use flowers or leaves as musical instruments, and their larger counterparts below dance a galop. An Insect Ball was one of more than 50 drawings that the artist made for wood-engraved reproduction in Le Magasin pittoresque (The Picturesque Store), a popular encyclopedic review edited by Grandville's friend Edouard Charton. In text printed below the wood-engraved version of An Insect Ball, Grandville explained that his aim was to show insects with the same humorous personalities seen at any human ball, while also rendering their forms with scientific accuracy.
  • [Sotheby-Parke-Bernet, London (4 December 1975), no. 390, repr.]. [Paris art market]; [Galerie Arnoldi-Livie, Munich]; purchased in 1977.
  • Foster, Carter E., Sylvain Bellenger, and Patrick Shaw Cable. French Master Drawings from the Collection of Muriel Butkin. [Cleveland, Ohio]: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2001. Mentioned and Reproduced: cat. no. 30, p. 70-71
  • French Master Drawings from the Collection of Muriel Butkin. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 26-October 28, 2001); Dahesh Museum of Art (February 19-May 18, 2002).
  • {{cite web|title=An Insect Ball|url=false|author=Jean-Jacques Grandville|year=1835|access-date=28 March 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2008.345