Adèlaïde... Il me semble que je vois... la comète! (Adelaide... I think I see the comet!), from "Croquis Parisiens"
Original title: Adèlaïde... Il me semble que je vois... la comète! (Adelaide... I think I see the comet!), from "Croquis Parisiens"
kurzbeschreibung
Honoré Daumier made this lithograph on 18 February 1857 as a sheet in the series 'Croquis Parisiens'. A woman with a candle and a man in a top hat aiming a telescope at the window are watching the night sky. This impression is the third state of three.
Description
Two figures face each other in an interior. On the left a woman carries a candle and gestures with her free hand, her expression betraying worry or excitement. On the right a man in a top hat points a telescope toward the window. A curtain and a window opening onto a starry sky close off the view behind them. Captions beneath the scene reproduce the pair's exchange. Caricatural and comic in tone, printed in black and white.
Context
The print belongs to the 'Croquis Parisiens', which Daumier drew for the satirical journal 'Le Charivari'. It picks up the comet fever of the day, set off by the sighting of Donati's comet in 1857, and pokes fun at the bourgeois fascination with astronomical events. The series was devoted to everyday Parisian life and its fashions.
Impact
The exaggerated figures and their dialogue are funny and ironic. Domestic intimacy set against astronomical observation produces a comic tension, and the viewer is invited to smile without being lectured.
Technique
Lithography allowed the motif to be printed in three states; the present sheet is the third. The sheet measures 26 × 35.6 cm, the printed image 20.2 × 25.8 cm. The process permits the fine lines and shading typical of Daumier's satirical prints.
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Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art · Public Domain (CC0 1.0)