Ratapoil, Oil On Mahogany By Lucien Eller 1894-1940

RATAPOIL Oil on mahogany by Lucien ELLER 1894 - 1940 Dimensions 52.5 of the carefree and often nocturnal life of Paris during the belle époque. Birth of RATAPOIL It was in the tense political climate which preceded the coup d'état of December 2, 1851, following which Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte became President of the Republic (the Second Empire would not be proclaimed until a year later) , that Daumier had the brilliant intuition of “Colonel Ratapoil”, a sort of half-pay, propaganda agent, provocateur and spy in the service of the Bonapartist cause. The invention of this character is in fact linked to a whole campaign of anti-Bonapartist caricatures sparked in 1848 by republicans worried about the political rise and then the omnipresence in the public life of the nephew of Emperor Napoleon I. The drawings, engravings and sculptures of RATAPOIL by its inventor Honoré DAUMIER appear in various museums in France and it is not surprising that Lucien ELLER - ROUDIER, in homage to its creator, felt the need to paint this legendary character in his own way. .