Lot Essay
According to Maison, Daumier's decision to illustrate the Fables of La Fontaine came about on an evening at Theodore Rousseau's house in Barbizon in 1855. Daumier, Millet, Diaz (amongst others) were each to contribute drawing to the project which itself was never realised. Daumier characteristically chose the fable 'Les Médecins' a rather sinister story of an unlucky patient whose tale is found as subject in popular engravings of the 1830s. The patient find himself torn between the docotrs 'Tant-pis' (prognosis death) and 'Tant-mieux' (prognosis recovery). This sketch is closely related to the watercolour with the same title in the Reinhart Collection, Winterthur (K.E. Maison, Daumier Drawings, no. 100).