What Do You See? The Collection of Sidney Rothberg, Part III

Please note this Lot is accompanied by a Certificate from the Art Loss Register, confirming the Lot is free of any suspicion of loss or looting.

Provenance:

Claude Roger-Marx, Paris, France.

Edward Fuchs, Berlin, Germany.

Exhibition:

Galerie Matthiesen, Berlin, Ausstellung Honoré Daumier: Aquarelle und Zeichnugen, 1926, no. 24.

Literature:

Edward Fuchs, Der Maler Daumier, Munich, 1930, p. 47, no. 32 (illustrated).

Jean Adhémar, Honoré Daumier, Paris, 1954, p. 123, no. 97 (illustrated pl. 97).

K.E. Maison, Honoré Daumier: Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings, Watercolors and Drawings, London, 1968, vol. I, pp. 196-197, no. II-25 (illustrated pl. 190).

Luigi Barzini and Gabriele Mandel, L'opera pittorica completa di Daumier, Milan, 1971, p. 107, no. 222 (illustrated).

Lot Essay:

Honoré Daumier, with his depictions of the Paris working class, is recognized as among the first and most important of the realist painters. The present painting, Le Buveur Chantant, circa 1856, depicts a subject the artist treated several times, that of men imbibing, whether alone or together. The Barnes Foundation holds one such example from the same period, Les Deux Buveurs, circa 1858, which undoubtedly drew Rothberg to the present work, which was one of the prized jewels of his collection.

Here, Daumier compresses the composition within a vertical format, focusing on the enthusiastic singer, who raises his head, mouth open as if in mid-verse, as he grips his glass with his right hand. The artist’s characteristic thick brushstrokes delineate the man’s face and figure, while scumbled strokes describe the background. As Ives would surmise, 'Daumier’s particular genius is evident in the stunning and disciplined clarity of his images. The artist never became mired in detail or narratives that required explanation, but instead concentrated on defining character through incisive description. Thus, true identities are revealed' (C. Ives, Daumier Drawings, exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1992, p. 175). It is in this way that Daumier has superbly captured the animated personality of his contemporary subject.