Épinal prints were prints on popular subjects rendered in bright sharp colours, sold in France in the 19th century. They owe their name to the fact ...
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that the first publisher of such images — Jean-Charles Pellerin [fr] — having been born in Épinal, named the printing house he founded in 1796, Imagerie d´Épinal [fr].
The expression image d´Épinal has become proverbial in French and refers to an emphatically traditionalist and naïve depiction of something, showing only its good aspects.
The prints were also a regular point of comparison for criticizing paintings by Courbet - notably his Burial at Ornans and Peasants of Flagey returning from the Fair [avk] - and Manet. Acknowledging the proximity of some of Manet´s works, like his Fifer, Zola turned the comparison into praise.
