André Gill, born Louis-Alexandre Gosset de Guines, was one of the most prominent caricaturists of the French satirical press, celebrated for his portraits of public figures with oversized heads on diminutive bodies in La Lune and later L’Éclipse. This carte de visite was produced by Ch. Reutlinger’s Paris studio at 21 Boulevard Montmartre.<br><br>He is shown half length, leaning on a small decorative table with one hand resting near a lit cigarette held between his fingers. His thick dark hair is swept back in loose waves, and a full mustache sits above a clean-shaven chin. He wears a heavy double-breasted overcoat with a dark velvet collar, closed loosely over a shirt and narrow cravat.<br><br>Gill’s 1867 caricature of Napoleon III as the brigand Rocambole led to the suppression of La Lune, and he continued his satirical work at its successor, L’Éclipse. During the Commune he was appointed administrator of the Musée du Luxembourg, where he worked to catalog and preserve its paintings. He later founded his own journal, La Lune Rousse, in 1876, though his final years were marked by illness that led to his death at the Charenton asylum in 1885.<br><br>The reverse is inscribed in pencil, “André Gill / Caricaturist,” and again at the base, “André Gill / French caricaturist,” over the printed studio imprint of Ch. Reutlinger, Photographe, 21 Boulevard Montmartre, Paris, noting the studio’s Premier Prix at the 1867 Exposition Universelle, with the archival notations “3/07/07,” “LOHIEZ,” and “Eb.”