3-089-084 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Rue Transnonain, le 15 avril 1834, (1834). The subject, reported in a supposedly neutral way, was the repression that had followed a riot on 5 April 1834, during which a family in the Parisian working-class district of St Martin had been shot by government troops. The full horror only emerges as the eyes examine the dark recesses. Through most of the nineteenth century, French political caricature was heavily censored. Daumier was the prize satirical draughtsman of the left-wing journal leading the attack against censorship, 'La Caricature'. This exceptionally large print is unusual in his work, being scarcely a caricature at all.