Charles Philipon
Charles Philipon (19 April 1800 – 25 January 1861) was a French lithographer, caricaturist and journalist. He was the founder and director of the satirical political journals La Caricature and of Le Charivari. Early life Charles Philipon came from a small, middle-class, Lyons family. His father, Étienne Philipon, was a hatter and wallpaper manufacturer. He enthusiastically welcomed the revolution of 1789. According to Pierre Larousse his ancestors included Manon Roland, Armand Philippon, and Louis Philipon de La Madelaine. After attending school in Lyons and Villefranche-sur-Saône, Charles Philipon studied drawing at the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts de Lyon. He left his hometown in 1819 to work under the artist Antoine Gros in Paris but returned at his father's behest in 1821 to join the family business, designing fabric for three years. Though this activity did not suit him, it left its mark on his subsequent work. During hard economic and social times in 1824, he took part in a Lyons carnival parade that was deemed seditious; he was arrested, but ultimately charges were dropped. Charles Philipon finally left Lyon for Paris where he reunited with old friends from the workshop Gros. One of them, Nicolas Toussaint Charlet, a renowned artist,