L’ingénieux chevalier Don Quichotte de La Manche

Grandville reacted to the French government re-installation of censorship and betrayal of the free press, joining the tradition of Jacques Callot (from Nancy also) and his contemporary satirist Honoré Daumier.  Grandville was refered to as the King of Caricature and the French Hogarth. By 1835, with the censorship laws  reinstated, more arrests, and government shut downs of the journals, Grandville looked toward book illustration and a more universal message about political and social freedoms.

This first edition of Grandville’s illustrated volumes of Cervantes with the original polychrome cartonnage, richly gilt after a design by Grandville. The two volumes are embossed with hand-colored designs showing Don Quixote on his horse in stylized armor.

One of the 24 woodcut engravings by Grandville shows the iconic image of Don Quixote’s duel with the windmills