Edouard León Louis Edy-Legrand

This drawing by French illustrator Edouard Léon Edy-Legrand is one of a group of preparatory drawings executed for a 1930 illustrated edition of Alphonse Daudet’s 1872 novel Tartarin of Tarascon. In this scene, Tartarin, a portly, mustachioed man, visits Madame Mitaine’s menagerie in Tarascon, a town in southern Provence, where he encounters a lion. As he stands before the creature in its cage, it emits a load roar, causing the other spectators to flee in fear. The chaos and frenzy of the crowd is underscored by the artist’s undulating layers of linework in both graphite and ink.