Daniel Girard is one of those illustrators whose output was prodigious – he illustrated nearly seventy books over three decades – but whose life was uneventful enough to be almost entirely unrecorded. We know that he also worked under the pseudonyms Daniel-Girard, Max Delian and Dagy, and that during the late 1920s and early 30s he worked almost exclusively for Éditions Henri Cyral. We also know that in the 1950s he was living in Paris’s 14th arrondisement, in the Impasse du Moulin Vert. And that is about all.

Though he was good at imbuing his figures with real character, he rarely had the opportunity to illustrate anything even vaguely erotic, so it must have been a pleasure when in 1931 Henri Cyral suggested he illustrate Pierre Louÿs’ saucy naturist romp Les aventures du Roi Pausole. In addition to Pausole, we have also included Daniel Girard’s illustrations to Restif de la Bretonne’s foot-fetish-friendly Madame Parangon, to show how effective he could be in watercolours.