Le Retour à Paris - LES TRAINS DE PLAISIR

Le Retour à Paris is the b/w lithographes plate ( n.15 ) from the satirical print series “ Les Trains de Plaisir”, composed of caricatures “ de mœurs” (of behaviours), realized by  Honoré Daumier  (France, 1808-1879).

Published by the Maison Martinet, Paris, this plate appeared on the French periodical,  Le Charivari , on September 28th, 1852. Printed by the lithographer Charles Trinocq.

Reference: H. Delteil, Catalogue Raisonnée, 2339.

Inscriptions: Monogrammed on stone , h.D, 441..

Complete Caption : LE RETOUR A PARIS –Deux nuits sans fermer l’oeil!...un lumbago et un rhume de cerveau…plus souvent qu’on me rattrapera encore à prendre un train de plaisir!

Superb print, full margins, depicting an amusing scene of a sitting couple tired because of a train-travel , is in excellent condition, with imperceptible aging signs (light redness and some traces of oxydation on the margins).

Honoré-Victorin Daumier  (Marseille,1808 – Valmondois, 1879)

The French painter, sculptor, and printmaker, best-known as the “Michelangelo of the caricatures”, Honoré Daumier, offers us commentary on the social and political life in France, from the Revolution of 1830 to the fall of the second Napoleonic Empire in 1870. Caricatures and cartoons of political figures, satirizing the behavior of his countrymen in newspapers and periodicals was his main activity, for which he became popular in his lifetime and is remebered and appreciate still today. He was a republican democrat whose targets were the bourgeoisie, the church, lawyers and the judiciary, politicians, and the monarchy. His talented and satiric pencil had a very high cost on his life: he was jailed for several months in 1832 after the publication of Gargantua because of a offensive depiction of King Louis-Philippe.  Charles Baudelaire noticed the Daumier's production and greatly admired his paintings, which were to have an influence on a younger generation of impressionist and postimpressionist painters. Later generations have come to recognize Daumier as one of the great French artists of the 19th century. Daumier was prolific artist that produced more than 100 sculptures, 500 paintings, 1000 drawings, 1000 wood engravings, and 4000 lithographs.