1852
ink
From the collection of National Gallery of Art
Le déjeuner du patron le sixiéme clerc ... is a 1852 ink by Honoré Daumier, a Impressionism work, held at National Gallery of Art.
This lithograph shows a boss at a table piled with food while a thin clerk scrapes a tiny plate below. Thick lines make the boss’s belly and the clerk’s ribs stand out. Daumier used the quick, rough marks of the printing process to push the joke. The stark contrast in body sizes makes the gap between rich and poor feel obvious in one glance. Look up lithography to see how ink on stone turns into art.
Honoré-Victorin Daumier was a French painter, sculptor, and printmaker, whose many works offer commentary on the social and political life in France, from the Revolution of 1830 to the fall of the Second French Empire in 1870.
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