Ernest Griset

Ernest Henri Griset (24 August 1843, Boulogne-sur-Mer, – 22 March 1907, London) was a French-born painter and illustrator noted for the humorous interpretations of his subjects.

He studied for a while under the Belgian artist Louis Gallait before moving back to England, then regularly drew the animals at the London Zoo as a basis for his paintings and illustrations.

[1] He became known particularly for his humorous and satirical designs, which were best displayed in his two Christmas books, Griset’s Grotesques, or Jokes Drawn on Wood (1867), which was accompanied by the comic verses of Tom Hood.

[7][8] Of this work a reviewer noted that "nothing so quaint as these illustrations has appeared since the days of Grandville…Griset possesses the faculty of investing his animals with human expression, without ever causing them to lose their own identity, and of making them funny without being ridiculous.

"[9] A decade later, Griset may have been complicit in an attempt to revive his sales by having a death notice appear in The Times on 9 July 1877, where he was described as having "produced countless drawings in grotesque of animals and human savages, which wise collectors obtained for trivial sums at an untidy little shop near Leicester Square".