Advice to a Young Artist

1865/1868

Honoré Daumier

Artist, French, 1808 - 1879

A young and older man, both with pale skin, stand next to each other in shadowy room looking at a piece of white paper held by the older man in this vertical painting. Light from the upper left falls across the men, and they take up most of the height of the composition. The paper is held by a balding, elderly man at the center of the painting. He wears a knee-length, dark brown jacket and trousers. His has a gray beard and hair, and thin black lines delineate his brows and trace the creases on his face. A younger man standing to our left has short black hair and ruddy skin. He tilts his head to gaze at the paper in the older man’s hands. The younger man wears a sage-green jacket, and his lower body is partially hidden by a wooden rack before him. The V-shaped rack supports an open, dark green portfolio folder, and the young man rests his hands on the edges of more sheets of paper there. There are two paintings hanging on the olive-green wall of the room to each side of the men, but they are loosely painted and deep in shadow, so the subjects are difficult to make out. Another aquamarine-blue folder rests against a red bed or sofa that runs along the back wall. A white, folded cloth sits on the sofa above the portfolio. The artist signed the lower left, “h. Daumier.”

Media Options

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On View

West Building Ground Floor, Gallery G8

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Gift of Duncan Phillips

  • Dimensions

    overall: 41.3 x 33 cm (16 1/4 x 13 in.)
    framed: 65.7 x 57.5 cm (25 7/8 x 22 5/8 in.)

  • Accession

    1941.6.1

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot [1796-1875], Paris; (his estate sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, part III, 7-9 June 1875, no. 665); purchased by Arthur Stevens.[1] Guillotin, Paris, by 1901. Adolphe A. Tavernier, Paris, by 1901.[2] [Ernest?] Cronier, by 1904. Goerg [or Georg], Reims, by 1905. A. Bergeaud, Paris, in 1910.[3] (Alex Reid & Lefèvre, Ltd., Glasgow and London), by 1927; sold to D.W.T. Cargill [1872-1939], Glasgow. (M. Knoedler & Co., New York), by 1928.[4] (Galerie Étienne Bignou, New York); sold 1941 to Duncan Phillips [1886-1966], Washington, D.C.; gift 1941 to NGA.
[1] Annotated copy of Corot sale catalogue gives "Stevens" as purchaser; Jean Adhémar, Daumier, Paris, 1954, no. 79, gives collection "Arthur Stevens."
[2] Lent by Tavernier to 1901 Daumier exhibition in Paris at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, no. 76.
[3] Lent by Bergeaud to Chefs-d'oeuvre de l'école française: Vingt peintre du XIX siècle at Galeries Georges Petit, Paris, in 1910, no. 40.
[4] See letter dated 24 August 1966, in NGA curatorial files, which documents the sale by Alex Reid & Lefèvre to D.W.T. Cargill, Glasgow. Lent by Cargill to Knoedler's 1928 exhibition in New York.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1901

  • Exposition Daumier, Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1901, no. 76

1910

  • Chefs d'oeuvre de l'école française: Vingt peinture du XIXe siècle, Galeries Georges Petit, Paris, 1910, no. 40.

1927

  • Paintings and Drawings by Honoré Daumier, Alex Reid and Lefèvre, Ltd., London, 1927, no. 3, repro.

1928

  • A Century of French Painting; Exhibition organized under the auspices of his Excellency the Ambassador of France in Washington for the Benefit of the French Hospital in New York, M. Knoedler & Co, New York, 1928, no. 9

1930

  • Cent ans de peintre française, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 1930, no. 6, repro.

1976

  • Zapadnoevropeiskaia i Amerikanskaia zhivopis is muzeev ssha [West European and American Painting from the Museums of USA], State Hermitage Museum, Leningrad; State Pushkin Museum, Moscow; State Museums, Kiev and Minsk, 1976, unpaginated and unnumbered.

1983

  • Honoré Daumier; Georges Roualt, Accademia di Francia a Roma, Villa Medici, Rome, 1983-1984, no. 18

1999

  • Daumier: 1808-1879, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris; The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C., 1999-2000, not in catalogue (shown only in Washington).

2013

  • Daumier (1808-1879): Visions of Paris, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2013-2014, no. 2, repro.

Bibliography

1908

  • Klossowski, Erich. Honoré Daumier. Munich, 1908: no. 378.

1923

  • Fontainas, André. La Peinture de Daumier. Paris, 1923: pl. 2.

  • Klossowski, Erich. Honoré Daumier. Munich, 1923: 121, no. 378.

1927

  • Fuchs, Eduard. Der Maler Daumier. New York, 1927: 39, 50, pl. 111 (Munich, 1930: 39, 50, pl. 111).

1928

  • Cahiers d'art III (1928): repro. 183.

1929

  • Bertram, Anthony. Honoré Daumier. London, 1929: pl. IV.

  • Goodrich, Lloyd. "Exhibitions in New York." The Arts XIV (November 1929): repro. 269.

1930

  • Escholier, Raymond. Daumier. Paris, 1930: 260, pl. 15.

1931

  • Wilenski, R.H. French Painting. Boston, 1931: 232, pl. 92b (Revised editions, 1949, 1973: 212, pl. 85b).

1937

  • Fleischmann, Benno. Honoré Daumier. Vienna, 1937: no. 50, repro. (French edition, Maurice Sachs, ed., Paris, 1939: 24, pl. 50).

1938

  • Lassaigne, Jacques. Daumier. New York, 1938: repro. 72.

1939

  • Sachs, Maurice. Honoré Daumier. Paris, 1939: no. 50, repro.

1941

  • Magazine of Art XXXIV (October 1941): 400.

  • "A Daumier for the National Gallery." Art News 40, no. 12 (October 1941): repro. 6.

  • Frankfurter, Alfred M. "Now the Great French 19th Century in the National Gallery." Art News 40, no. 17 (December 15-31, 1941):repro. p. 19

1942

  • "Recent Important Acquisitions of American Collections." The Art Quarterly V, no. 1 (Winter 1942): 105, repro. 99.

  • Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 251, repro. 46.

1944

  • Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. Masterpieces of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1944: 158, color repro.

1949

  • Cassou, Jean. Daumier. Lausanne, 1949: pl. 35.

1954

  • Adhémar, Jean. Honoré Daumier. Paris, 1954: 121, pl. 79.

1956

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1956: 52, pl. 20.

1957

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Comparisons in Art: A Companion to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. London, 1957 (reprinted 1959): pl. 118.

1959

  • Evans, Grose. French Painting of the 19th Century in the National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C., 1959 (Booklet Number Two in Ten Schools of Painting in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.): 20, color repro.

1960

  • The National Gallery of Art and Its Collections. Foreword by Perry B. Cott and notes by Otto Stelzer. National Gallery of Art, Washington (undated, 1960s): 10.

1963

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 250, repro.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 37.

1966

  • Larkin, Oliver W. Daumier, Man of His Time. New York, 1966: 153, 156, 189, pl. 74.

  • Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. A Pageant of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. New York, 1966: 2:416, color repro.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 30, repro.

  • Maison, K.E. Honoré Daumier, catalogue raisonné. 2 vols. New York, 1968: I:139-140, no. I-163, pl. 97.

  • Gandolfo, Giampaolo et al. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Great Museums of the World. New York, 1968: 79, 81, color repro.

1971

  • Mandel, Gabriele. L'opera pittorica completa di Daumier. Milan, 1971: no. 209, color pl. 45.

1973

  • Finley, David Edward. A Standard of Excellence: Andrew W. Mellon Founds the National Gallery of Art at Washington. Washington, 1973: 109.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 92, repro.

1979

  • Symmons, Sarah. Daumier. London, 1979: no. 40.

  • Watson, Ross. The National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1979: 108, pl. 95.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 434, no. 623, color repro.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 113, repro.

1991

  • Kopper, Philip. America's National Gallery of Art: A Gift to the Nation. New York, 1991: 255.

2000

  • Eitner, Lorenz. French Paintings of the Nineteenth Century, Part I: Before Impressionism. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 2000: 173-179, color repro.

2004

  • Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 353, no. 287, color repro.

Inscriptions

lower left: h. Daumier

Wikidata ID

Q20188655

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