Original Drawing By Alexandre Soldé (1822-1893) "the State Tank Sails On A Volcano"

MONSIEUR PRUDHOMME - THE STATE TANK SAILS OVER A VOLCANO This quote taken from the comedy by Henry Monnier and Gustave Vaëz, Grandeur et décadence de Monsieur Joseph Prudhomme (1852, act III, scene 3), acquired such fame that it passed almost immediately into everyday language. Taken up again in 1857 by Flaubert, in Madame Bovary, it remains an example of the stupidity of certain official speeches and also of this rhetorical trap which closes when two incompatible metaphors collide to produce an effect that is both comical and unfortunate. Created by Henry Monnier, Monsieur Prudhomme appeared in 1830 in Scènes populaire, drawn in pen, then in the play Grandeur et décadence by M. Joseph Prudhomme (1852) then in the two volumes of the collection of drawings Mémoires de Monsieur Joseph Prudhomme (1857), then in Monsieur Prudhomme, leader of brigands (1860). Of this emblematic character who is stupid, plump, conformist and self-righteous, Honoré de Balzac will say that he is “the illustrious type of the bourgeois of Paris”. Paul Verlaine took inspiration from it for his homonymous poem Poèmes saturniens. In 1931, Sacha Guitry created a play, Did Monsieur Prudhomme Live?, freely inspired by the life of Henry Monnier, and recounting the genesis of this character. From 1852, the caricaturist Honoré Daumier represented the character several times in his lithographs. *** Original pencil drawing by Alexandre SOLDÉ (1822-1893) Signed lower left Dimensions of the drawing 23.2 x 16.5 cm Mounted on strong paper Old drawing in a good state of conservation - See photo