Five Clay Busts After Honoré Daumier

Five polychrome busts in raw clay after "Celebrities of the Righteous Middle" by Honoré Daumier. Heights between 12 and 15 cm. One face has a broken nose, the other four busts are in good condition. The Celebrities of the Just Middle are a series of 36 busts in raw clay, modeled by Honoré Daumier (1808-1879) and exhibited at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris. It was between 1832 and 1835 that Honoré Daumier produced this series of busts in painted raw clay caricaturing the main political figures (and not only parliamentarians) of the beginning of the July Monarchy. These busts were used by the artist to produce lithographs intended to be published in the Journal de la Caricature. We do not know the exact number of bust-loads made by Daumier. Only 36 have come down to us, and are kept at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris. They would have been sold by Daumier to his publisher Charles Philipon for the sum of 15 francs each, then bought in 1927 from the grandson of the latter by the art publisher Maurice Le Garrec. The latter had them restored and decided to have them molded to produce editions in bronze and plaster. The Musée d'Orsay in turn acquired it in 1980. Honoré Victorin Daumier, born February 26, 1808 in Marseille and died February 10, 1879 in Valmondois, was a French engraver, caricaturist, painter and sculptor, whose works commented on social and political life in France in the 19th century. A prolific draftsman, author of more than four thousand lithographs, he is best known for his caricatures of politicians and his satires of the behavior of his compatriots. He changed our perception of the art of political cartooning. The value of his painted work, some five hundred paintings, has also been recognized, although only posthumously: Daumier is considered today as one of the greatest French painters of the 19th century.