Rue Transnonain, le 15 avril 1834

Rue Transnonain, le 15 avril 1834

1834
Honoré Daumier
French, 1808–1879
Lithograph
13 3/8 x 18 5/16 in. (33.9 x 46.5 cm)

Published in L’association mensuelle (August–September 1834)

A sharp satirist, Honoré Daumier created numerous caricatures of social and political events during his lifetime, most of them comical. Here, however, the artist adopts a somber tone, depicting the massacre of an innocent family by government troops during the April 1834 insurrections. Militia opened fire on a building that they believed harbored rebels, in the process accidentally killing civilians in their homes. The nightshirt worn by the dead man at center underscores his vulnerability. Of this image, Charles Baudelaire wrote, “Only silence and death reign.”

1982.120.4
Yale University Art Gallery, Everett V. Meeks, B.A. 1901, Fund