French engraver, active in Paris. He produced numerous socially critical engravings and caricatures. His best known work is the collection of illustrious proverbs (published 1657). It is divided into three books: the first contains the moral proverbs, the second the joyful proverbs and wits, the third represents life of beggars in proverbs.
This is one of the 38 large illustration in the publication “Les Advantures du fameux Chevalier Dom Quixot de la Manche et de Sancho Pansa son escuyer.”
Jacques Lagniet, a printmaker, was active on quai de la M�gisserie in Paris after 1650. He produced various series of Proverbes, published between 1657 and 1663. In the engraving reproduced here he adopted a harsh tone; in a clear and simple layout he employed the accusing, if resigned, tone of moralizing broadsheets: Nobles are spiders, peasants are flies.
