The Two Colleagues (Lawyers) (Les deux confrères [Avocats])
Brooklyn Museum photograph
Object Label
The approximately four thousand lithographic caricatures that Honoré Daumier produced were widely circulated in nineteenth-century Paris, where they were appreciated for their sharp satire of contemporary life. A critic of the French monarchy, Daumier often found himself at odds with contemporary censorship laws, serving time in jail in 1832 for ridiculing the French king Charles X. The Legislative Belly, which appeared in the monthly series issued by L’Association Mensuelle, skewers the corrupt conservative members of the Chamber of Deputies, highlighting their bulging stomachs and sneering faces.
Daumier’s works in other mediums reflect his training as a lithographer. The black, sweeping curves of the pompous lawyers’ robes in his watercolor The Two Colleagues call to mind his handling of the lithographic crayon in his prints. In the double-sided drawing Head of an Old Woman in Profile; Study of Heads, he worked in fluid, economic lines to evoke the physiognomies of the Parisian working-class figures that frequently appeared in his images of third-class railway carriages.
Titus Kaphar: These are so playful, they kind of fool you into thinking that they’re not as serious as they are, which I think, to some degree, is the power of the piece itself. It sneaks up on you.
Caption
Honoré Daumier Marseille, France, 1808–1879, Valmondois, France. The Two Colleagues (Lawyers) (Les deux confrères [Avocats]), 1865–1870. Opaque and transparent watercolor, black ink, and charcoal on wove paper, sheet: 10 × 7 13/16 in. (25.4 × 19.8 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Barbara Bisgyer Cohn, 2006.14. No known copyright restrictions (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 2006.14_PS1.jpg)
Gallery
Not on view
Collection
Gallery
Not on view
Collection
Artist
Title
The Two Colleagues (Lawyers) (Les deux confrères [Avocats])
Date
1865–1870
Geography
Place made: France
Medium
Opaque and transparent watercolor, black ink, and charcoal on wove paper
Classification
Dimensions
sheet: 10 × 7 13/16 in. (25.4 × 19.8 cm)
Signatures
Lower left: "H Daumier"
Credit Line
Gift of Barbara Bisgyer Cohn
Accession Number
2006.14
Rights
No known copyright restrictions
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