HONORÉ DAUMIER (1808-1879)
Avocat et client (L'avocat et le paysan – Défenseur et accusé)
signed with the artist's initials 'H.D.' (lower left)
brush and India ink, wash and black pencil on paper
15.1 x 15.8cm (5 15/16 x 6 1/4in).
Footnotes:
Provenance
Henri Rouart Collection, Paris.
Alexis Rouart Collection, Paris (acquired by 1901).
Ernest Rouart Collection, Paris (acquired by 1923).
Galerie Marcel Guiot, Paris.
Matthiesen Gallery, London (acquired by 1938).
Otto Wertheimer, Paris.
Dr. Max Schmidheiny Collection, Heerbrugg (acquired from the above, probably through Galerie Feilchenfeldt, Zurich, in 1947).
Private collection, Switzerland (by descent from the above); their sale, Christie's, London, 7 February 2002, lot 302.
Private collection, London (acquired at the above sale).

Exhibited
Paris, Palais de École des Beaux-Arts, Exposition Daumier, May 1901, no. 268.
Paris, Maison de Victor Hugo, Exposition Daumier et Gavarni, May – July 1923, no. 62.
Paris, Galerie L. Dru, Aquarelles et dessins de Daumier, 18 May – 11 June 1927, no. 28.
Paris, Musée de l'Orangerie, Daumier, Peintures, aquarelles, dessins, 1934, no. 137.
London, Matthiesen Gallery, A Century of French Drawings, from Prud'hon to Picasso, 3 – 21 May 1938, no. 38.
Gothenburg, Göteborgs Konstmuseum in association with Matthiesen Gallery, London and Christian Faerber, Gothenburg, Franska Handteckningar, Från 1800-Talet, 27 March – 19 April 1939, no. 6.
Copenhagen, Statens Museum for Kunst in association with the Foreningen Fransk Kunst, Copenhagen; Matthiesen Gallery, London and Christian Faerber, Gothenburg, Udstilling af Franske Haandtegninger, Fra det 19. og 20. Aarhundrede, May 1939, no. 20.
London, Tate Gallery, Daumier, Paintings and Drawings, 14 June – 30 July 1961, no. 198.
Bern, Kunstmuseum Bern, 'Zeichnen ist Sehen', Meisterwerke von Ingres bis Cézanne aus dem Museum der Bildenden Künste Budapest und aus Schweizer Sammlungen, 29 March – 2 June 1996, no. 56 (later travelled to Hamburg).

Literature
R. Escholier, Daumier, Peintre et Lithographe, Paris, 1923 (illustrated p. 128).
C. Martine, Dessins de maîtres français, Vol. IV, Honoré Daumier, Paris, 1924, no. 26.
E. Fuchs, Der Maler Daumier, Munich, 1927, no. 196b (illustrated pl. 196).
F. Davis, 'A Page for Collectors. Nineteenth-Century French Drawings.', in The Illustrated London News, Vol. 192, no. 5171, 28 May 1938, p. 971 (illustrated).
K.E. Maison, Honoré Daumier, Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings, Watercolours and Drawings, Vol. II, The Watercolours and Drawings, London, 1968, no. 612 (illustrated pl. 231).
R. Passeron, Daumier, Témoin de son temps, Fribourg, 1979, no. 168, p. 233 (illustrated p. 232).


Honoré Daumier was not only a keen observer of the French legal system – he was also a reluctant participant. In 1832, he stood trial for a caricature drawing of King Louis-Philippe published in the left-wing satirist magazine La Caricature. Attacking corruption and licentiousness in the King's government, Daumier depicted him as Gargantua – the insatiable giant from François Rabelais's popular story – devouring citizen's tax money, in the form of barrels of coins carted up into his gaping maw. In a barbed follow-up, the magazine published an unflattering drawing by Daumier of the King's Chief Prosecutor, Jean-Charles Persil, in women's attire. Along with his editor, Daumier was sentenced to six months of confinement in the Sainte-Pélagie prison in Paris.

This experience – and his many hours observing lawyers gathering around the Palais de Justice from his nearby apartment – aroused Daumier's artistic focus on the comedy and tragedy of urban life. With the zealous flourish of a playwright's son, Daumier focused his art on the theatrical, the legal system providing him with a cast of characters locked into a wider power struggle coloured by jargon, performance and narrative. With his trademark frankness and informality, Daumier staged artworks evoking the sins of greed, vanity, deception and sloth, playing out upon the stage of the Palais de Justice.

Daumier's legal works often comprised genre-style vignettes depicting one or two figures who signified the justice system without being hampered by a specific narrative. As such, physical gestures and facial expressions were central to these scenes, as his characters encompassed personifications of a society beset by inequality. His lawyers are often depicted huddled, confiding and whispering, while their clients exhibit dumbfounded expressions, as they suffer unexpected outcomes delivered by a complex and mysterious system. This conceit of deceit plays out poignantly in the present work, as the lawyer - clutching his documents and seemingly at ease in his environment - turns toward his client, who displays an expression of horror. The deep blacks of the lawyer's costume are stark against the colourless ruffled garb of the defendant, evoking a binary between them of knowledge, class and power.

Daumier produced thousands of satirical drawings for French periodicals that made biting and wryly humorous statements about French society, drawing upon close observation of Parisian folk as well as his vibrant imagination. This took place at a time of unprecedented growth in Paris, as the city's sprawling diversity and increasingly cosmopolitan outlook led to a demand for urban portraiture. The vitality of Daumier's linework conjured the action and emotion of these subjects with vigorous clarity. With few strokes of pencil, charcoal, chalk and ink, the resulting scenes appear unflinchingly spontaneous and yet deftly constructed. This quality led Charles Baudelaire to dub Daumier the 'Michelangelo of Caricature,' and later critics to credit him with emancipating drawing from the constraints of the prevailing French academic style, redefining it as a forthright and expressive mode of art. Influencing these shifts was the French Revolution's emphases on liberty and individualism, resulting in a greater focus on artistic autonomy, as well as a profound aversion to abuses of power.

The present work thereby forms a core emanation of Daumier's resounding influence, leading to its inclusion in some of the most significant historical exhibitions on the artist. Of these, the 1901 retrospective at the Palais de École des Beaux-Arts was the largest exhibition of Daumier's works ever assembled, solidifying his posthumous fame as a draughtsman and painter, not just as a caricaturist. Following this, the exhibition Daumier et Gavarni at the Maison de Victor Hugo in 1923 was the first significant Daumier exhibition after World War I, while the 1934 retrospective at the Musée de l'Orangerie was arguably the most important Daumier exhibition ever held. In addition, the present work was included in the 1961 Daumier retrospective at the Tate Gallery in London, which was organised by leading Daumier expert K.E. Maison and became of critical importance to Daumier scholarship. For some decades the present work formed part of the collection of the artist Henri Rouart and his sons, alongside twelve paintings and thirty-three drawings by the artist – including several masterpieces. It comes to us now from a distinguished private London collection, alongside two other remarkable drawings that showcase Daumier's master as a draughtsman and as a vigorous critic of humankind.

The work is attached to the mount along all four outer edges (verso).



One tiny discreet hole above the signature, visible only upon close inspection. The sheet has darkened slightly. Some tiny scattered spots of foxing and surface dirt are visible.



In our opinion, the work is in overall excellent condition.