← Honoré Daumier

Au Jardin des Plantes

Original title: Au Jardin des Plantes, from Actualités, published in Le Charivari, March 19, 1859

Artist

Honoré Daumier

Date

March 19, 1859

Medium

Lithograph on newsprint

Dimensions

Image: 8 7/8 × 10 15/16 in. (22.5 × 27.8 cm) Sheet: 14 1/4 × 11 3/8 in. (36.2 × 28.9 cm)

Credit line

Gift of Harry G. Friedman, 1960

kurzbeschreibung

Honoré Daumier's lithograph 'Au Jardin des Plantes' from 1859 appeared in the magazine 'Le Charivari'. The print presents a comic incident in the Paris Jardin des Plantes: a man is violently startled by an elephant behind bars.

Description

In the foreground, a man in a gown turns around in alarm, looking toward a large elephant that stands in a cage in the background and stretches its trunk toward him. The man holds a basket or container. Other people in the background also appear uneasy or frightened. The view remains monochrome and follows the caricatural style with clearly exaggerated facial expressions.

Context

The lithograph was published in the satirical magazine 'Le Charivari' and belonged to the series 'Actualités'. Daumier regularly created political and social caricatures for this paper. The Jardin des Plantes was very popular with the Parisian public, so contemporary audiences could easily relate to the situation.

Impact

What is especially funny is the man's exaggerated fear of the seemingly harmless elephant. The print invites a smile and reveals Daumier's skill in overstating everyday incidents with fine irony.

Technique

For this work, Daumier used lithography on newsprint, a common process for satirical prints at the time. This technique allowed for fine lines and shading that served the caricatural rendering.

AI-generated description text

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