← Honoré Daumier

I'll pretend to be asleep, otherwise he will never stop explaining his plans for amending his latest bill. –I'll make him believe that I am asleep or he will go on and on about the minutes of the last session, from 'News of the day,' published in Le Charivari, September 9, 1868

Original title: –I'll pretend to be asleep, otherwise he will never stop explaining his plans for amending his latest bill. –I'll make him believe that I am asleep or he will go on and on about the minutes of the last session, from 'News of the day,' published in Le Charivari, September 9, 1868

Artist

Honoré Daumier

Date

September 9, 1868

Medium

Lithograph on newsprint; second state of two (Delteil)

Dimensions

Image: 9 3/16 × 8 1/4 in. (23.4 × 21 cm) Sheet: 11 7/8 × 11 5/16 in. (30.1 × 28.8 cm)

Credit line

The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1962

kurzbeschreibung

Two weary men sit side by side on a bench indoors, captured in Honoré Daumier's 1868 lithograph. The print pokes fun at parliamentarians who meet an endless political debate with boredom and drowsiness.

Description

A wooden bench holds two suited men. The one on the left has his eyes shut and dozes; his companion on the right, lids half open, is about to nod off. A window and a faintly patterned wall close off the space behind them. Grey tones and fine hatching pick out the details of their clothing and the room. Lines of text at the foot of the sheet point to where the print was published.

Context

Issued as part of the 'Actualités' series, the sheet appeared on 9 September 1868 in the satirical paper Le Charivari. In his lithographs Daumier often took aim at the tedium and hypocrisy of political life under the Second Empire. This caricature targets the parliamentary debates of the day, known for their long, tiring speeches. The present example is the second state of the lithograph, as recorded by Delteil.

Impact

A melancholy, comic mood arises as the absurdity of political routine is exposed with quiet irony. The exhausted faces and the heavy, enclosed atmosphere make stagnation and weariness almost tangible.

Technique

Lithography on newsprint, printed in black and white. Daumier's drawing lives on slender lines and hatching that pin down characters and moods in a few strokes. Two states of this print exist; this copy is the second.

AI-generated description text

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