Daumier; Law and Justice Les Gens de Justice; introduction by Julien Cain; Tudor Publishing Co., New York, copyright Andre Sauret, Monte-Carlo, 1959. Printed in France. Text in English. Honoré-Victorin Daumier (1808 1879) was a French painter, sculptor, and printmaker, whose many works offer commentary on the social and political life in France, from the Revolution of 1830 to the fall of the second Napoleonic Empire in 1870. He earned a living throughout most of his life producing caricatures and cartoons of political figures and satirizing the behavior of his countrymen in newspapers and periodicals, for which he became well known in his lifetime and is still known today. Daumier was a tireless and prolific artist who produced more than 100 sculptures, 500 paintings, 1,000 drawings, 1,000 wood engravings, and 4,000 lithographs. From the introduction The barrister is seen in all the courts of the Palais de Justice, civil and criminal alike, peddling vast dossiers of blank paper stuffed in the sleeve of his gown. Here is the devil s advocate, a kind of legal rag-and-bone man, with his squint, greasy beard and nose red with wine, who picks up and throws into his basket all the filthy, dishonorable and much-ridden briefs which his honorable colleagues have kicked into the gutter or thrown to the prison rats. But here is the barrister of the civil courts, king of chicanery, the dandy of the courts: there is no man of law, this is a gentleman of the law. The brotherhood of lawyers is a well-known concept. Daumier saw this magic-lantern of black figures performed before his very eyes. From the age of thirteen he knew and was often present at the Palais de Justice when his father frequented the chambers of the lawyers in the attempt to regulate his affairs. This very large format book, 130 pages measuring 310mm X 240mm is in fine condition in a very-good dust jacket that is now enclosed in a protective mylar wrap. This large and heavy book may require additional postage.
