Jul 9, 2007

The Troubadour

The Troubadour

1868–73

Honoré Daumier

(French, 1808–1879)

Oil on fabric

Framed: 99.5 x 73 x 8 cm (39 3/16 x 28 3/4 x 3 1/8 in.); Unframed: 83.6 x 56.8 cm (32 15/16 x 22 3/8 in.)

Bequest of Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. 1958.23

Did you know?

Daumier was called the “Michelangelo of caricature” and especially renowned for his cartoons and drawings satirizing 19th-century French politics and society.

Description

The troubadour, a medieval traveling poet and entertainer, was a popular subject in 19th-century French art. Associated with chivalry and courtly love, the theme reflects a broader, romantic fascination with France's medieval past. Although Daumier was particularly inspired by the troubadour paintings of French Rococo artist Jean-Antoine Watteau of the 1700s, he rendered the subject here in a powerful style of simplified, muscular form that appealed to modern artists of his own time.

Video

The Artist, Honoré Daumier
Poetic Figure
See also

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