{
"data": {
"id": 441006,
"accession_number": "2021.141",
"share_license_status": "CC0",
"tombstone": "Washerwomen Descending a Quai Staircase, 1888. Alexandre Lunois (French, 1863\u20131916), after Honor\u00e9 Daumier (French, 1808\u20131879). Transfer lithograph; image: 57.1 x 41.8 cm (22 1/2 x 16 7/16 in.); sheet: 64.7 x 49 cm (25 1/2 x 19 5/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Carole W. and Charles B. Rosenblatt Endowment Fund, 2021.141",
"current_location": null,
"title": "Washerwomen Descending a Quai Staircase",
"creation_date": "1888",
"creation_date_earliest": 1888,
"creation_date_latest": 1888,
"artists_tags": [
"male"
],
"culture": [
"France, 19th century"
],
"technique": "transfer lithograph",
"support_materials": [
{
"description": null,
"watermarks": []
}
],
"department": "Prints",
"collection": "PR - Lithograph",
"type": "Print",
"measurements": "Image: 57.1 x 41.8 cm (22 1/2 x 16 7/16 in.); Sheet: 64.7 x 49 cm (25 1/2 x 19 5/16 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"sheet": {
"height": 0.647,
"width": 0.49
},
"image": {
"height": 0.571,
"width": 0.418
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": null,
"inscriptions": [
{
"inscription": "signed, lower right, in pencil: Alex. Lunois",
"inscription_translation": null,
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": null
}
],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 371563,
"title": "Degas and the Laundress: Women, Work, and Impressionism",
"description": "Degas and the Laundress: Women, Work, and Impressionism. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 8, 2023-January 14, 2024).",
"opening_date": "2023-10-08T04:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": []
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "(Jan Johnson Old Master & Modern Prints, Quebec, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH)",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "?-2021",
"sortorder": 1
},
{
"description": "Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "2021-",
"sortorder": 2
}
],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": "An impression of this print was selected for display at the prestigious annual exhibition of the Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 des Artistes Fran\u00e7ais in 1888.",
"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 Honor\u00e9 Daumier\u2019s Washerwomen of the Quai d\u2019Anjou, an 1850 canvas depicting laundresses carrying heavy bundles on a staircase adjacent to Paris\u2019s Seine River. Although Lunois worked closely from Daumier\u2019s painting, he reinterpreted some details, such as the shadows on the woman\u2019s face, emphasizing the strenuousness of her labor.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q115755084"
],
"internet_archive": [
"https://archive.org/details/clevelandart-2021.141-washerwomen-descendi"
]
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "Be\u0301raldi, Henri. Les Graveurs du XIXe si\u00e8cle. Paris: L. Conquet, 1885.",
"page_number": "Mentioned vol. 11, p. 196, no. 10",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Andre\u0301, Edouard. Alexandre Lunois, peintre, graveur et lithographe. Paris: H. Floury, 1914.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 198, 214",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Salsbury, Britany. Degas and the Laundress: Women, Work, and Impressionism Exh. Cat. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2023.",
"page_number": "Preproduced: p. 123, no. 16",
"url": ""
}
],
"catalogue_raisonne": "Andr\u00e9 p. 214",
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/2021.141",
"images": {
"annotation": null,
"web": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/2021.141/2021.141_web.jpg",
"width": "683",
"height": "900",
"filesize": "291139",
"filename": "2021.141_web.jpg"
},
"print": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/2021.141/2021.141_print.jpg",
"width": "2579",
"height": "3400",
"filesize": "4299274",
"filename": "2021.141_print.jpg"
},
"full": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/2021.141/2021.141_full.tif",
"width": "9461",
"height": "12475",
"filesize": "354104976",
"filename": "2021.141_full.tif"
}
},
"alternate_images": [],
"creditline": "Carole W. and Charles B. Rosenblatt Endowment Fund",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
"sketchfab_url": null,
"gallery_donor_text": null,
"athena_id": 441006,
"creators": [
{
"id": 29818,
"description": "Alexandre Lunois (French, 1863\u20131916)",
"extent": null,
"qualifier": null,
"role": "artist",
"biography": null,
"name_in_original_language": null,
"birth_year": "1863",
"death_year": "1916",
"use_in_caption": true,
"include_extent": false,
"weight": 1
},
{
"id": 1638,
"description": "Honor\u00e9 Daumier (French, 1808\u20131879)",
"extent": null,
"qualifier": "after",
"role": "artist",
"biography": "Honor\u00e9 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 Acad\u00e9mie Suisse. Around 1825 he began a five-year apprenticeship with the publisher and lithographer Z\u00e9pherin 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, Honor\u00e9 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.",
"name_in_original_language": null,
"birth_year": "1808",
"death_year": "1879",
"use_in_caption": true,
"include_extent": false,
"weight": 2
}
],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "2021-09-13T04:00:00Z",
"sortable_date": 1888,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "1888",
"collapse_artists": false,
"on_loan": false,
"recently_acquired": false,
"record_type": "object",
"conservation_statement": null,
"has_conservation_images": false,
"cover_accession_number": null,
"is_nazi_era_provenance": false,
"impression": null,
"alternate_titles": [],
"is_highlight": false,
"updated_at": "2026-03-27 00:07:21.394000"
}
}