Brigand de tailleur... encore un habit... rétréci! 1847

Honoré Daumier etched this lithograph, named 'Brigand de tailleur... encore un habit... rétréci!' sometime in the mid-19th century. Here, we see the corpulent bourgeois, trapped in a battle of wills against his wife and his shrinking trousers. The struggle for dominance is a recurring motif, from ancient Greek wrestling matches to Renaissance depictions of the 'Battle of the Sexes'. The man's bulging figure, however, takes us to the comedic tradition of the ‘fat man’ figure, a symbol of indulgence and the butt of social satire, echoing in the works of Hogarth and Gillray. But consider also the deeper anxieties at play: the fear of losing control, the emasculation through domesticity, and the absurd predicament of man versus fabric. Like the ouroboros, the serpent eating its own tail, this man is consumed by his own excess, a cyclical torment played out on the stage of bourgeois life. The scene reflects the changing times, where economic and social pressures create new forms of personal anxieties, forever looping through the human psyche.