id: 125525 accession number: 1947.458 share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1947.458 updated: 2023-08-25 11:18:33.210000 The Best Days in Life: When One's Portrait is Exhibited at the Salon, 1845. Honoré Daumier (French, 1808–1879). Lithograph; sheet: 34.7 x 26.4 cm (13 11/16 x 10 3/8 in.); image: 26.5 x 23.3 cm (10 7/16 x 9 3/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. 1947.458 title: When One's Portrait is Exhibited at the Salon title in original language: series: The Best Days in Life series in original language: creation date: 1845 creation date earliest: 1845 creation date latest: 1845 current location: creditline: Gift of Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. copyright: --- culture: France, 19th century technique: lithograph department: Prints collection: PR - Lithograph type: Print find spot: catalogue raisonne: Daumier Register / Delteil 1147 ; Hazard-Delteil 784 --- CREATORS * Honoré Daumier (French, 1808–1879) - artist Honoré Daumier was eight years old when his father, a glazier and frame maker who had decided to pursue his poetic talents in Paris, sent for the wife and three sons he lad left behind in Marseilles. In Paris Daumier studied drawing with Alexandre Lenoir (1761-1839) and at the Académie Suisse. Around 1825 he began a five-year apprenticeship with the publisher and lithographer Zépherin Belliard (1798-?). The July revolution of 1830, which established Louis-Philippe as the constitutional monarch in France, coincided with Daumier's creation of satirical lithographs aimed at this new government. That same year he joined La Caricature, a political journal founded by the republican artist-publisher, Charles Philipon (1802-1862). Daumier's antimonarchist and liberal subjects that were printed in this paper eventually cost the journal censorship and the artist six months in jail (31 August 1832 to 14 February 1833) plus a 300-franc fine. His prison sentence did not deter him from producing political statements and, in fact, only fueled his rage. The subjects of his lithographs became much more aggressive. In 1835 he worked for Philipon's second publication, Le Charivari, a humorous political newspaper that published Daumier's satirical caricature until it, too, suffered censorship under the new government. Although Daumier may be best known for his graphic art, he was also a sculptor and a prolific painter. Sculpture became another medium to produce his infamous caricatures. His friend, Honoré de Balzac, French novelist and editor of La Caricature, saw in these works the force of Michelangelo. In 1834 Daumier began experimenting with painting, both in oil and watercolor. Apart from his Salon entries of 1849 and 1850, his paintings, which totaled over three hundred, were painted primarily for his own pleasure and virtually unknown to the public until after his death in 1879. * Aubert - publisher --- measurements: Sheet: 34.7 x 26.4 cm (13 11/16 x 10 3/8 in.); Image: 26.5 x 23.3 cm (10 7/16 x 9 3/16 in.) state of the work: I/III edition of the work: support materials: description: cream wove paper watermarks: inscriptions: inscription: Lower margin, in pencil: c. 7340 translation: remark: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: Graphic Humor opening date: 1982-06-01T04:00:00 Graphic Humor. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 1-August 29, 1982). --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS --- PROVENANCE Leonard C. Hanna Jr., given to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH date: ?-1947 footnotes: citations: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH date: footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: digital description: This print (with title and captions added) was published in Le Charivari (April 26, 1845) as plate 59 from the series The Best Days in Life. wall description: --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1947.458/1947.458_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1947.458/1947.458_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1947.458/1947.458_full.tif