Alexander Gabriel Descamps

Paul Gavarni was the pen name of Sulpice Guillaume Chevalier (13 January 1804 – 24 November 1866), a French illustrator, born in Paris.

Gavarni's father, Sulpice Chevalier, was from a family line of coopers from Burgundy. Paul began work as a mechanical worker in a machine factory but he saw that to make any progress in his profession, he had to be able to draw; accordingly in his spare time in the evenings, he took classes in drawing. He devoted his special attention to architectural and mechanical drawing and worked at land surveying and mapping which led to his obtaining a position with the Government Ordnance Department as a draughtsman.

The story is told that he took his name from Gavarnie in Luz-Saint-Sauveur where he had taken a journey into the Pyrenees.

His first published drawings were for the magazine Journal des modes.

At the time, Gavarni was barely thirty years of age. His sharp and witty drawings gave these generally commonplace and unartistic figures a life-likeness and an expression which soon won him a name in fashionable circles.