Nationality
French
Artist Dates
1808-1879
Title of Work
Preview
Date of Work
1869
Medium
Lithograph
Signature
Initialed in the lithographic stone.
Collection/Provenance
Gift from the estate of Lilly Jacobson.
Art & Design Study Collection
Status
Stored: Lilly Jacobson Collection Box 15
Location
UND Art Collections Office, Hughes Fine Arts Center
Additional Information
Series: Actualités
Published in Le Charivari
Original text: Une séance de magnétisme.
Notes:
Here Daumier presents an allegory about political instability among nations in Europe. Mars, the god of war, is kept asleep through “animal magnetism” (which preceded hypnotism). Should Mars wake up, war will soon erupt.
In the field of medicine, animal magnetism (or mesmerism) was generally associated more with charlatans, than with honest physicians. Yet, some doctors experimented with it as alternate medicine. As hypnotism progressed through the 19th century, it increasingly gained respectability—when understood as being about the power of suggestion, rather than uncanny magnetic energy.
Included in the Daumier III: Law, Medicine, and Social Satire exhibition.