Honoré Daumier

Paul Gallimard (1850-1929), Paris;

with Brame, Paris;

Mr. Edwin C. Vogel, New York,

sale, New York, Sotheby Parke Bernet, 17 October 1973, lot 16;

with Harriet Griffin Gallery, New York;

with Acquavella Galleries, Inc., New York;

Private Collection, USA

Paris, Galerie L. & P. Rosenberg Fils, Exposition de dessins, aquarelles et lithographies de H. Daumier, 1907, no. 19 (Collection de M. Gallimard);

London, Tate Gallery, Daumier: Paintings and Drawings, 1961, no. 124

K.E. Maison, Honoré Daumier, Catalogue Raisonné, London 1968, vol. II, p. 107, no. 317, pl. 88, reproduced

The presence of a study on the verso of the present work seems to have previously gone unremarked. The figure depicted appears to be a lawyer carried away by his plea, arms aloft, eyes wide and mouth open in animated speech. Daumier became a regular visitor to the Palais de Justice in Paris in the 1830s, treating the subject of lawyers at work in numerous such studies.