–By God, Catherine.... –Monsieur, this Zouave is a healer... it's just for my health!, from 'News of the day,' published in Le Charivari, September 18, 1867
Original title: –By God, Catherine.... –Monsieur, this Zouave is a healer... it's just for my health!, from 'News of the day,' published in Le Charivari, September 18, 1867
kurzbeschreibung
Where many of Daumier's political caricatures take aim at the state, this 1867 lithograph turns to an absurd everyday scene: a Zouave presenting a doll as a cure. The sheet belongs to the series 'News of the day' and appeared in the French satirical journal Le Charivari. It was printed as a lithograph on newsprint, in the second state of two.
Description
A Zouave stands with his arms crossed, holding a doll aloft and eyeing it with suspicion while he touts it as medicine. Two women beside him are laughing, while an older woman — evidently the mother — watches with a worried face and one hand at her head. A plain room with a door and hanging pot lids fills the background. Everything stays in black and white with mostly grey tones, as was usual for lithographs of the period. The layout feels restless, since the figures act in different directions and pull the eye toward the Zouave.
Context
Daumier made this lithograph for 'News of the day,' a series that ran regularly in the satirical journal Le Charivari. Its publication on 18 September 1867 falls in the era of the Second Empire under Napoleon III, when Daumier often took aim at social and political ills. The Zouave, a French colonial soldier, appears here as a dubious healer — a motif that points to the contemporary debate over quackery and medical charlatanism.
Impact
Exaggerated faces and the absurd situation of the Zouave and his doll give the caricature its comic, satirical bite. The laughing women and the anxious mother create a lively, almost theatrical mood that brings a smile to the viewer.
Technique
For this lithograph Daumier drew with greasy chalk on a limestone and then printed the image on newsprint. That the work survives in the second state of two points to later reworking of the printing plate. The monochrome grey palette matches the fast, mass production of satirical prints in the nineteenth century.
AI-generated description text
Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art · Public Domain (CC0 1.0)