← Honoré Daumier

De l'utilité d'une famille pour une cantatrice, from Croquis Parisiens, published in Le Charivari, January 28, 1857

Original title: De l'utilité d'une famille pour une cantatrice, from Croquis Parisiens, published in Le Charivari, January 28, 1857

Artist

Honoré Daumier

Date

January 28, 1857

Medium

Lithograph; second state of two (Delteil)

Dimensions

Sheet: 10 7/16 × 14 1/8 in. (26.5 × 35.8 cm) Image: 7 3/8 × 9 15/16 in. (18.8 × 25.2 cm)

Credit line

The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1962

kurzbeschreibung

Honoré Daumier made this lithograph in 1857 as part of his Croquis Parisiens series; it appeared in Le Charivari on 28 January 1857. The print survives in the second of two states (Delteil) and pictures a family watching a singer on stage through a window.

Description

A man, a woman and two children sit in a room and look through a window toward a stage, where a cantatrice stands in a striking dress. The woman holds a bouquet. The layout stretches horizontally and draws the eye back and forth between the family and the singer. Light comes in through the window and picks out the figures. Rendered in black and white, the image mixes realistic detail with faces pushed well past caricature.

Context

Le Charivari, the satirical paper that printed the lithograph on 28 January 1857, ran Daumier's political and social caricatures regularly. This sheet belongs to Croquis Parisiens, a series given over to everyday Paris life and the world of the opera. Daumier was known for his close reading of the bourgeoisie, and here he takes aim at the family's role in a singer's orbit.

Impact

Setting a private family scene against the singer's public turn on stage produces an amused tension. Exaggerated faces and an unusual vantage point give the picture a humorous, nearly ironic edge. The viewer becomes a quiet witness to an intimate situation that feels at once close and distant.

Technique

Lithography, a common print process of the period, allowed fine gradations of light and shadow, and Daumier drew straight onto the stone. Printing in black ink produced the characteristic black-and-white look. That the sheet is the second state suggests reworking or corrections of the kind typical for the series.

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Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art · Public Domain (CC0 1.0)