Rue Transnonain
Honore Daumier (1808-1879), Rue Transnonain, lithograph, 1834, Reference: Delteil 135, Daumier Register 135, only state. With full margins, 13 x 18 1/8, the sheet 14 3/8 x 21 inches. On wove paper, in very good condition apart from several nicks and two (repaired) tears bottom margin edge, a soft fold lower left margin corner, another fold (flattened) visible verso only. [With initials, addresses, title in the plate]
Provenance:
ex Collection: Ruth Benedict (Ms. Benedict served as a guest curator at the National Gallery, Washington, DC, and was honored by the Gallery with the show A Discerning Eye: Prints and Drawings Given by Ruth B. Benedict)
ex Collection: James H. Lockhart (with mark verso, after Lugt)
ex Collection: Dieter and Lilian Noack (with mark verso, after Lugt)
A brilliant impression of this great rarity, among the most treasured of Daumier prints and indeed, of fine prints generally.
Rue Transnonain was created in response to the massacre of 19 people – including women and children – by the French National Guard in response to the strike of silk weavers in Lyon, on April 14, 1834.
Daumier created this large scale lithograph for inclusion in the L’Association Mensuelle, a publication for subscribers whose purposes was to collect funds to further freedom of the press, and pay for lawsuits brought against Charivari. Association lithographs were larger scale than the usual Charivari publications, and their distribution was to a very small group – the subscribers of this special publication. When the printseller Aubert showed the lithograph in his shop window the authorities were so incensed that all impressions were ordered found and confiscated (as well as the lithographic stone). Outstanding impressions were hidden (usually after extensive folding!).
ON RESERVE