Un joli calembour, no. 27 from the series Les Baigneurs

This print, which depicts two men playing dominoes in a public bath, is part of a series of 30 lithographs called The Bathers, published in the satirical journal Le Charivari between June 1839 and September 1842. During a period of intense censorship of the press, Honoré Daumier used such subjects from everyday life to comment on French society under the reign of constitutional monarch Louis Philippe, who reigned from 1830 to 1848.

Daumier’s image would have appeared in Le Charivari with printed captions. This print, however, captures a rare moment before publication: it shows the proposed caption for the image and is addressed on the reverse to one of Daumier’s caption authors, Laurent Jay.

Unlike Goya, Daumier generally did not write his own captions, because he felt that captions were less important than images. He was nevertheless involved in the editing process and would return a proof to his caption writers with a correction or change. After they agreed on a caption, both text and image would be sent to the government censor for approval.