About this artwork
A favorite of Daumier’s, this print is a play on traditional genre scenes, comically at odds with the sense it portrays. “Sight” is represented by a nighttime stroll alongside the River Seine, with Notre Dame emerging hazily from the darkness. The clearest object is the moon, represented by a curve of unmarked paper, in stark contrast with the heavily shaded image. The moon’s prominence only deepens the print’s irony: a crescent moon is traditionally a symbol that a husband has been cuckolded by his wife, suggesting that the man in the print cannot see what is right before his eyes.
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Status
- Currently Off View
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Department
- Prints and Drawings
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Artist
- Honoré-Victorin Daumier
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Title
- Sight, plate 39 from Types Parisiens
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Place
- France (Artist's nationality:)
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Date
- 1839
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Medium
- Lithograph in black on white wove paper, with letterpress verso
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Dimensions
- Image: 20 × 22.8 cm (7 7/8 × 9 in.); Sheet: 25.1 × 37.4 cm (9 15/16 × 14 3/4 in.)
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Credit Line
- Mr. and Mrs. Carter H. Harrison Collection
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Reference Number
- 1935.194
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IIIF Manifest
- https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/21550/manifest.json