2015.51.3 Honoré Daumier, The Human Comedy: Reading of the Will

GENERAL DESCRIPTION

A lawyer reads a will to a group of men and women who listen with various degrees of interest and anticipation to learn what, if anything, they have inherited. Published in Le Charivari on December 20, 1853, the lithograph was one of seven works forming the series The Human Comedy. Daumier may have drawn inspiration for this title from the French novelist Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850), who used it as early as 1841 to name a much larger series of caricatures that portrayed Parisian types and pointed out their all-too-human characteristics. Balzac also worked briefly for Le Charivari in its early days.

Excerpt from

Martha MacLeod, DMA label copy, 2016.

NOTES

Created 1853

October 2016

Checked Piction

Plate 1, state 2

Inscription: At top center: Le Comédie Humaine At upper right: 1 In stone at lower right: h.D. In stone at lower center incorporated in to the image: 575 At lower left: Maison martinet r. Vivienne 41 et 11 r. du Coq At lower right: Imp. Ch. Trinocq Cour des Miracles 9, Paris At bottom center: <i>La Lecture d’un Testament

Catalogue essays

Artist/designers

Daumier, Honoré (French, 1808-1879)

Cultures

Geography

Place of origin: Paris (France): TGN: 7008038

Process/materials

Lithography on paper

Historical periods

Individuals

Subject terms

RELATED OBJECTS

PROVENANCE

AUDIO ASSETS

VIDEO ASSETS

IMAGE ASSETS

WEB RESOURCES

National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC~Read a biography of Daumier from the NGA.

ARCHIVAL RESOURCES

FUN FACTS

TEACHING IDEAS

RULES

Apply to objects where number equals 2015.51.3

General Description

A lawyer reads a will to a group of men and women who listen with various degrees of interest and anticipation to learn what, if anything, they have inherited. Published in Le Charivari on December 20, 1853, the lithograph was one of seven works forming the series The Human Comedy. Daumier may have drawn inspiration for this title from the French novelist Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850), who used it as early as 1841 to name a much larger series of caricatures that portrayed Parisian types and pointed out their all-too-human characteristics. Balzac also worked briefly for Le Charivari in its early days.