← Honoré Daumier

Just imagine that there are people drinking absinthe..., from 'Parisian sketches,' published in Le Petit Journal pour Rire, January 30, 1864

Original title: Just imagine that there are people drinking absinthe..., from 'Parisian sketches,' published in Le Petit Journal pour Rire, January 30, 1864

Artist

Honoré Daumier

Date

January 30, 1864

Medium

Lithograph; third state of four (Delteil)

Dimensions

Image: 9 5/8 × 8 3/8 in. (24.5 × 21.2 cm) Sheet: 17 5/8 × 11 3/4 in. (44.8 × 29.8 cm)

Credit line

The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1962

kurzbeschreibung

Honoré Daumier’s lithograph from 1864 shows two café-goers deep in conversation about absinthe. It belongs to the series 'Parisian Sketches' and appeared on January 30, 1864, in 'Le Petit Journal pour Rire'. Today the print is held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Description

Two men sit in a bare room, likely a bar. The one on the left laughs and holds a glass of absinthe; the one on the right points at him with one finger and holds a bottle in his other hand. Both wear simple clothing of the period. A wall and a table form the sparse background. Black-and-white lithograph with an accompanying caption.

Context

For the satirical paper 'Le Petit Journal pour Rire', Daumier drew the series 'Croquis Parisiens', which in the 1860s took aim at everyday scenes from Paris. This lithograph picks up on the then-fashionable absinthe craze, which found followers especially in intellectual and artistic circles in France. Through his images Daumier exposed social habits and contradictions of Parisian society, often with humorous punchlines.

Impact

At first glance, the lively gestures of the two men catch the eye: one laughs with raised glass, the other points at him accusingly. That contrast creates an ironic tension and makes the absurdity of absinthe consumption in a wine country palpable. The simple layout draws attention entirely to the interplay of the figures and their message.

Technique

Daumier drew with greasy chalk on a stone, creating a lithograph, a planographic printing process. Several print states of this motif exist; the present sheet is the third of four (Delteil). The precise lines and graduated shading demonstrate his assured mastery of the technique, which was widely used for caricatures in the nineteenth century.

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