← Honoré Daumier

Mister Mayor, what is a bibiscite? –It is a Latin word that means yes, from 'News of the day,' published in Le Charivari, April 30, 1870

Original title: –Mister Mayor, what is a bibiscite? –It is a Latin word that means yes, from 'News of the day,' published in Le Charivari, April 30, 1870

Artist

Honoré Daumier

Date

April 30, 1870

Medium

Lithograph on newsprint; second state of two (Delteil)

Dimensions

Image: 9 5/16 × 7 7/8 in. (23.7 × 20 cm) Sheet: 14 1/16 × 10 11/16 in. (35.7 × 27.1 cm)

Credit line

Gift of Harry G. Friedman, 1960

kurzbeschreibung

Three people stand talking on a street, one of them in a top hat and waistcoat and easily read as the mayor. Honoré Daumier drew this scene in 1870 as a lithograph for the satirical journal Le Charivari. The print on newsprint survives in the second of two states.

Description

Three men are gathered on the pavement, deep in conversation. On the right stands the official in his top hat and waistcoat; the other two are more plainly dressed. Beneath the image run lines of text and verse that carry the joke of the caricature. The sheet stays black on white, as the lithograph dictates. The layout is uncluttered and directs the eye squarely at the exchange between the figures.

Context

The caricature appeared on 30 April 1870 in Le Charivari, the French satirical journal. In it Daumier takes aim at the plebiscite with which Napoleon III sought confirmation of his liberal reforms. The work falls in a tense political moment shortly before the Franco-Prussian War and the fall of the Second Empire. Through the figure of the mayor, Daumier mocks the ignorance of large parts of the population when faced with political jargon.

Impact

The humour comes from the collision of official dignity and plain ignorance. With so few details and such a clear arrangement, the eye lands at once on the conversation, and the punchline draws a smile. That the sheet is printed only in black and white underlines the documentary character of newspaper lithography.

Technique

The sheet was printed as a lithograph on newsprint, a process Daumier used regularly for his satirical work. The drawing went onto the stone and could thus be reproduced in large numbers. Of the second state of the print, the literature (Delteil) records that it differs from the first.

AI-generated description text

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