HONORE DAUMIER (1808-1879)

Details

HONORE DAUMIER (1808-1879)

Ratapoil

numbered and stamped on the back of the base '9/12 C. VALSUANI CIRE PERDUE'--bronze with dark brown patina
Height: 17¾in. (45cm.)
Original clay version executed circa 1850; this bronze version cast circa 1960, number nine in an edition of 12

Literature

M. Gobin, Daumier sculpteur, Geneva, 1952, no. 61 (plaster version and another bronze cast illustrated, pp. 294-299)
R. Ray, Daumier, Paris, 1953 (another cast illustrated)
J.L. Wasserman, Daumier Sculpture, A Critical and Comparative Study, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1969, pp. 161-173, no. 37 (plaster version and other bronze casts illustrated, pp. 162-163 and 166; nos. 37a-f)
R. Passeron, Daumier, lemoin de son temps, Fribourg, 1979, no. 100 (another cast illustrated, p. 169)

Lot Essay

Unlike the caricature busts Daumier modeled of the supporters of Louis-Phillipe (see lot 201), Ratapoil was not a specific person, but represented the artist's conception of a type of agent-provocateur who undermined the July Monarchy and prepared the way for the autocratic rule of Louis Napoléon (later Napoléon III). As a staunch republican Daumier excoriated both regimes. While viewing Ratapoil Daumier's friend the historian Jules Michelet told him "You have struck at the enemy full force! Here is the Bonapartist idea pilloried by you forever!" (J.L. Wasserman, op. cit., p. 161)