Figure study. (Feuille d' étude avec quatre personnages). Around 1855

Honoré Daumier

1808 Marseille - 1879 Valmondois

Pen and black and grey ink, with wash. Size of sheet: 10.8 x 27.6 cm. Exh. cat. Musée de Cannes, La Provence et ses Peintres au XIXème Siècle, Cannes 1929, cat. no. 85. Exh. cat. Kunstmuseum Winterthur, Die Hauptwerke der Sammlung Hahnloser Winterthur, cat. no. 171. Exh. cat. Staatliche Graphische Sammlung Munich. Europäische Meisterwerke aus Schweizer Sammlungen. cat. no. 36. Ill. Will be included in the supplement catalogue raisonné of Karl Erick Maison.

Provenance: Galerie Rosengart. Luzern 1938; Collection Hahnloser Winterthur

Rare example of an intact sheet containing different sketches. Such sheets were formerly often cut up into individual representations. The left-hand group shows a painter with a nude model, a rarity in Daumier's oeuvre and possibly an allegory of 'truth to nature'. The motif reminds us of Courbet's large-scale Atelier of 1855, which was rejected by the Salon and exhibited independently. Delicately executed, with the figures faintly indicated in grey ink and the principal parts emphasized in black ink.

Bought by a private collector, UK.