![Honoré Daumier (Marseille, France, 1808–1879, Valmondois, France). <em>Head of an Old Woman in Profile (Tête de vieille femme de profil à gauche) [recto]; Study of Heads (Étude de têtes) [verso]</em>, late 1850s. Black chalk on wove paper (recto); black chalk and black ink on wove paper (verso), Sheet: 5 1/8 x 7 in. (13 x 17.8 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Museum Collection, 40.527a-b (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 40.527_transp1450.jpg)](https://d1lfxha3ugu3d4.cloudfront.net/images/opencollection/objects/size2/40.527_transp1450.jpg)
Honoré Daumier (Marseille, France, 1808–1879, Valmondois, France). Head of an Old Woman in Profile (Tête de vieille femme de profil à gauche) [recto]; Study of Heads (Étude de têtes) [verso], late 1850s. Black chalk on wove paper (recto); black chalk and black ink on wove paper (verso), Sheet: 5 1/8 x 7 in. (13 x 17.8 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Museum Collection, 40.527a-b (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 40.527_transp1450.jpg)
![Honoré Daumier (Marseille, France, 1808–1879, Valmondois, France). <em>Head of an Old Woman in Profile (Tête de vieille femme de profil à gauche) [recto]; Study of Heads (Étude de têtes) [verso]</em>, late 1850s. Black chalk on wove paper (recto); black chalk and black ink on wove paper (verso), Sheet: 5 1/8 x 7 in. (13 x 17.8 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Museum Collection, 40.527a-b (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 40.527_transp1451.jpg)](https://d1lfxha3ugu3d4.cloudfront.net/images/opencollection/objects/size2/40.527_transp1451.jpg)
Honoré Daumier (Marseille, France, 1808–1879, Valmondois, France). Head of an Old Woman in Profile (Tête de vieille femme de profil à gauche) [recto]; Study of Heads (Étude de têtes) [verso], late 1850s. Black chalk on wove paper (recto); black chalk and black ink on wove paper (verso), Sheet: 5 1/8 x 7 in. (13 x 17.8 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Museum Collection, 40.527a-b (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 40.527_transp1451.jpg)
Head of an Old Woman in Profile (Tête de vieille femme de profil à gauche) [recto]; Study of Heads (Étude de têtes) [verso]
Honoré Daumier
European Art
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.
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.
MEDIUM
Black chalk on wove paper (recto); black chalk and black ink on wove paper (verso)
DATES
late 1850s
DIMENSIONS
Sheet: 5 1/8 x 7 in. (13 x 17.8 cm) (show scale)
SIGNATURE
Signed, "H.D." in lower right
COLLECTIONS
European Art
ACCESSION NUMBER
40.527a-b
CREDIT LINE
Brooklyn Museum Collection
MUSEUM LOCATION
This item is not on view
CAPTION
Honoré Daumier (Marseille, France, 1808–1879, Valmondois, France). Head of an Old Woman in Profile (Tête de vieille femme de profil à gauche) [recto]; Study of Heads (Étude de têtes) [verso], late 1850s. Black chalk on wove paper (recto); black chalk and black ink on wove paper (verso), Sheet: 5 1/8 x 7 in. (13 x 17.8 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Museum Collection, 40.527a-b (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 40.527_transp1450.jpg)
IMAGE
recto, 40.527_transp1450.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph
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