id: 441006 accession number: 2021.141 share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/2021.141 updated: 2022-08-04 09:03:08.358000 Washerwomen Descending a Quai Staircase, 1888. Alexandre Lunois (French, 1863-1916), after Honoré Daumier (French, 1808–1879). Lithograph; image: 56.9 x 41.7 cm (22 3/8 x 16 7/16 in.); sheet: 64.6 x 48.9 cm (25 7/16 x 19 1/4 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Carole W. and Charles B. Rosenblatt Endowment Fund 2021.141 title: Washerwomen Descending a Quai Staircase title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: 1888 creation date earliest: 1888 creation date latest: 1888 current location: creditline: Carole W. and Charles B. Rosenblatt Endowment Fund copyright: --- culture: France, 19th century technique: lithograph department: Prints collection: PR - Lithograph type: Print find spot: catalogue raisonne: André p. 214 --- CREATORS * Alexandre Lunois (French, 1863-1916) - artist * 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. --- measurements: Image: 56.9 x 41.7 cm (22 3/8 x 16 7/16 in.); Sheet: 64.6 x 48.9 cm (25 7/16 x 19 1/4 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: inscription: signed, lower right, in pencil: Alex. Lunois translation: remark: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS --- PROVENANCE (Jan Johnson Old Master & Modern Prints, Quebec, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH) date: ?-2021 footnotes: citations: Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH date: 2021- footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: An impression of this print was selected for display at the prestigious annual exhibition of the Société des Artistes Français in 1888. digital description: Alexandre Lunois worked extensively in lithography, a relatively recent invention during his time that was rarely used by artists, making both reproductive and original works. This print reinterprets Honoré Daumier’s Washerwomen of the Quai d’Anjou, an 1850 canvas depicting laundresses carrying heavy bundles on a staircase adjacent to Paris’s Seine River. Although Lunois worked closely from Daumier’s painting, he reinterpreted some details, such as the shadows on the woman’s face, emphasizing the strenuousness of her labor. wall description: --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS Béraldi, Henri. Les Graveurs du XIXe siècle. Paris: L. Conquet, 1885. page number: Mentioned vol. 11, p. 196, no. 10 url: André, Edouard. Alexandre Lunois, peintre, graveur et lithographe. Paris: H. Floury, 1914. page number: Mentioned: p. 198, 214 url: --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/2021.141/2021.141_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/2021.141/2021.141_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/2021.141/2021.141_full.tif