CARAN D’ACHE, the pseudonym (meaning “lead-pencil”) of Emmanuel Poiré (1858–1909), French artist and illustrator, who was born and educated at Moscow, being the grandson of one of Napoleon’s officers who had settled in Russia. He determined to be a military painter, and when he arrived in Paris from Russia he found an artistic adviser in Detaille. He served five years in the army, where the principal work allotted to him was the drawing of uniforms for the ministry of war. He embellished a short-lived journal, La Vie militaire, with a series of illustrations, among them being some good-tempered caricatures of the German army, which showed how accurately he was acquainted with military detail. His special gift lay in pictorial anecdote, the story being represented at its different stages with irresistible effect, in the artist’s own mannered simplicity. Much of his work was contributed to La Vie parisienne, Le Figaro illustré, La Caricature, Le Chat noir, and he also issued various albums of sketches, the Carnet de chèques, illustrating the Panama scandals, Album de croquis militaires et d’histoire sans légendes, Histoire de Marlborough, &c., besides illustrating a good many books, notably the Prince Kozakokoff of Bemadaky. He died on the 26th of February 1909.
A collection of his work was exhibited at the Fine Art Society’s rooms in London in 1898. The catalogue contained a prefatory note by M. H. Spielmann.