Chacun son métier

Given the casual disregard of expertise and hard-won experience that's about these days, I have some sympathy with Napoléon's admonishment of a vegetable seller who tried to tell him how to retain his empire.

'Chacun son métier' is an Épinal print (so named after the Imagerie d'Épinal printing house that Jean-Charles Pellerin founded in Épinal in 1796), which depicts Napoléon arriving at a crowded Place du Carrousel on his triumphant return from Elba. From amidst the crowd, a forthright vegetable seller steps forward and proceeds to lecture him about how to avoid losing power a second time. To each his own trade, he responds: you stick to selling cabbages and carrots, and I'll stick to politics, and we'll each know what to do.

There is something magical about the vibrancy and immediacy of this print (which I found recently found in a folder under a wardrobe; it seems my late husband collected quite a few of them). It's a woodcut, with stencilled colour, by François Georgin, from about 1835. The massed faces in the crowd, including those of the horses, are full of drama and interest, and the sense of a big, dirty city is palpable. Best of all, I think, is the rendering of the squarely planted vegetable seller, whose ample presence is echoed in the bulging produce sacks, the curves of the pumpkins, and, not least, the magnificent rump of the Emperor's horse.

Chacun son métier: Épinal stencilled woodcut print by François Georgin, c. 1835. Image courtesy of Katherine Prior.