L'Artillerie du Binocle (The Artillery of the Binoculars)

This hand-colored lithograph mocks fashionable Parisians obsessed with opera glasses and theatrical spectacle. Five figures—three men and two women of exaggerated features—brandish lorgnettes and binoculars as weapons, their faces hidden behind enormous goggles. The lower register shows cherubs and architectural detail, typical of the Bilderbogen tradition of satirical broadsheets. As a periodical devoted to ridiculing contemporary fashion and manners, this print descends from the caricature lineage of Gillray and Rowlandson, targeting bourgeois vanity and the performative nature of urban social life.