The Rider's Palms
1904
French illustrator Fernand Gottlob captures a delightfully vain moment in this 1904 sketch. A bespectacled man with a magnificent mustache proudly displays a small medal to an admiring woman in a dressing room, seemingly oblivious to the skeptical, ghostly face sketched in the background. The title, 'The Equestrienne's Palms,' hints at a humorous clash between stiff academic honors (the Palmes Académiques) and the lively world of circus performers, a classic theme in Belle Époque satire.
- Technique
- charcoal and pencil
- Material
- paper