Nationality
French
Artist Dates
1808-1879
Preview
Date of Work
1850
Medium
Lithograph
Collection/Provenance
Art & Design Study Collection
Status
Stored: FF_006_T
Location
UND Art Collections Repository
Artist Bio
Honoré Daumier was a prolific painter, printmaker and caricaturist born in 1808 in Marseille, France. In 1822 Daumier studied under Alexandre Lenoir, an artist and archaeologist that was dedicated to saving French monuments during the French Revolution. One year later he went on to attend the Académie Suisse. His works are best known for commenting and critiquing on the 19th century social and political life in France. Honoré Daumier's works can be found at the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Rijksmuseum, and several other prominent collections internationally. The University of North Dakota holds more than 1600 works by Daumier, the vast majority of which are part of the Lilly Jacobson Collection, which can be accessed here: https://commons.und.edu/daumier-prints/.
Aside from making powerful politically-charged images that reflected his pro-republican views, Daumier satirized lawyers, doctors, businessmen, professors, and lifestyles of the bourgeoisie. Although the inscriptions that accompany Daumier’s lithographs were not written by him, one might assume they mostly conveyed the spirit of the artist’s intent behind his images.
Additional Information
Un cauchemar de Mimi. 1850.
English: Mimi's nightmare.
Lithograph, published in Le Charivari, initialed in lithographic stone
Purchased with funds from the Myers Foundations
University Art Collections: Art & Design Study Collection
The print references the medical-pharmaceutical world by depicting an oversized syringe that appears in the nightmare of Louis Désiré Véron (1798-1867)—who was a doctor, pharmacist, opera manager, publisher, and politician. Veron owned the conservative newspaper, Le Constitutionnel, which had opposing views to the republican causes favored by Daumier and the satirical periodical, Le Charivari.
Aside from the syringe, Veron’s eerie dream involves a giant nightcap, a huge spider, and Le Charivari—a publication that regularly attacked Veron. The spider is labelled "paté Regnault,” in reference to a cough cream invented by a pharmacist that was successfully marketed by Veron.
Included in the Honoré Daumier III: Law, Medicine, and Social Satire exhibition, 2018.
Condition
Excellent
Rights
Images are provided for educational purposes only and may not be reproduced for commercial use. Images may be protected by artist copyright. A credit line is required to be used for any public non-commercial educational purpose. The credit line must include, “Image courtesy of the University of North Dakota.”