2-702-396 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

'François Rabelais', (1933). Portrait of French writer, satirist, humanist, doctor and monk François Rabelais (1494-1553), author of the romance "La Vie de Gargantua et de Pantagruel" (The Life of Gargantua and of Pantagruel) which appeared in four volumes between 1532 and 1552. The style is coarse, ribald and exuberant, and the use of language imaginative. The English language owes two adjectives to Rabelais: Gargantuan, of tremendous size or volume, huge appetites; Rabelaisian, coarse, robust, bawdy humour; extravagent caricature. From "Gestalten Der Weltgeschichte", a book of cigarette-card portrait miniatures of figures in world history from the last four hundred years. [Germany, 1933]