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Overview
Honoré Daumier (1808-79) was a French printmaker, caricaturist, painter and sculptor, whose many works offer an acerbic, humorous and constantly intelligent commentary on social and political life in France in the 19th century. Daumier produced over 500 paintings, 4000 lithographs, 1000 wood engravings, 1000 drawings and 100 sculptures. A prolific draughtsman, he was perhaps best known for his caricatures of political figures and satires on the behaviour of his countrymen, although posthumously the value of his painting has also been recognised.
Daumier produced his caricatures for the comic journal Le Charivari, in which he held bourgeois society up to ridicule in the figure of Robert Macaire, hero of a popular melodrama. In another series, L'histoire ancienne, he took aim at the stultifying pseudo-classicism of the art of the period. In 1848 Daumier embarked again on his political campaign, still in the service of Le Charivari, which he left in 1863 and rejoined in 1864. A humanitarian left-winger with a tremendous gift for mordant social satire, Daumier was frequently in conflict with conservative government authorities, and was imprisoned for six months in 1832. He had many powerful admirers, however, including critic and poet Charles Baudelaire, who called Daumier 'One of the most important men, not only I would say in caricature but also in modern art'.
La journée du célibataire (A day in the life of a bachelor) is a series of 12 colour lithographs that originally appeared in Le Charivari between April and September 1839. It was also published in separate black and white and colour albums. The bachelor, Monsieur Coquelet, has a cat (Minette) and a dog (Azor), the latter portrayed here. Coquelet clearly lived a life of stinginess and loneliness, diligently avoiding any permanent relationship. According to the Daumier Registry, the artist 'not only chastises the loneliness of his bachelor's existence but even more so his avarice and makes him appear ridiculous in his exaggerated affection for his pets, usually an over-fed dog, cat, canary or occasionally a plant on the window sill. With a somewhat melancholy smile, the reader recognises these insufficient substitutes for real love and partnership and the waste led by a life diligently governed by a daily routine which starts at 7 in the morning and ends at 9 at night, leaving no room for personal deployment and deplores the waste of precious time'.
This print depicts an episode in Coquelet's imaginary day at 2 pm, when he is confronted by a beggar. Coquelet naturally refuses to give him anything, and reasons 'What do you want, my dear fellow? This beast has only me; you, you have everybody'. Coquelet's complacency and selfishness, and by the end of the day the fatuousness of his life, unravel before the viewer.
See:
Booktryst, http://www.booktryst.com/2010/07/tonight-on-bachelor-daumiers-single-man.html
Wikipedia, 'Honoré Daumier', https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honor%C3%A9_Daumier
Dr Mark Stocker Curator, Historical International Art April 2018