About this artwork
Carnivalesque humor and bodily deformation take an occult turn in this print, in which Louis Philippe and his ambassador to Great Britain, Charles de Talleyrand, are transformed into demonic friars. Daumier highlighted the hypocrisy of the regime through details such as the crucified figure of Liberty, the rosary made of coins, Talleyrand’s cloven hoof, and Louis Philippe’s hooked toenail. Yet Talleyrand’s feline familiar appears more domesticated than devilish, a sign of bourgeois respectability embedded in the fantastical.
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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
- When the Devil Grew Old He Became a Hermit, plate 476
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Place
- France (Artist's nationality:)
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Date
- 1835
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Medium
- Lithograph in black on off-white wove paper
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Dimensions
- Image: 19.9 × 26.2 cm (7 7/8 × 10 3/8 in.); Sheet: 27.1 × 36.4 cm (10 11/16 × 14 3/8 in.)
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Credit Line
- John H. Wrenn Memorial Collection
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Reference Number
- 1958.767
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IIIF Manifest
- https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/86410/manifest.json