Molière Characters — Maurice Sand & Geoffroy Illustrations (1868)

In 1668, Jean-Baptiste Poquelin — known to history as Molière — presented L’Avare at the Palais-Royal in Paris. The miser Harpagon, clutching his strongbox, raging at his children, suspicious of everyone around him, was immediately recognisable to his audience. He still is. Two centuries later, Maurice Sand and Geoffroy gave these characters their definitive visual form in the lavish 1868 edition of the Œuvres complètes — twenty-one hand-colored portraits that capture not just costume and gesture, but character: the sanctimonious curl of Tartuffe’s lip, the pompous bearing of Monsieur Jourdain, the quick intelligence of Scapin.

This digital collection presents all twenty-one illustrations from that 1868 Paris edition — full-length character portraits in period costume, hand-colored and engraved by Wolf and Manceau, introduced by critic Jules Janin. Each image documents a principal character from Molière’s most celebrated comedies: Le Tartuffe, L’Avare, Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, Le Misanthrope, Les Fourberies de Scapin, and more — rendered with the precision and theatricality characteristic of Second Empire book illustration at its finest.

Product Details

• 21 high-resolution images in JPG format
• Resolution: approx. 1158 × 1940 px, 96 DPI
• Full-length hand-colored character portraits
• Public domain — free for personal use
• Instant digital download upon purchase

Perfect For

• Theater professionals and students researching historical costume and character interpretation
• Graphic designers creating theatrical posters, programs, and editorial materials
• Educators teaching French literature, theater history, and 17th-century culture
• Costume designers studying authentic period dress and theatrical presentation
• Art collectors building a digital archive of rare theatrical illustration
• Anyone captivated by the golden age of French comedy and its enduring characters

Read more: The Hypocrite, the Miser, and the Gentleman: Molière’s Characters and Why They Never Left