Pour lors... nous... sommes dans le pétrin 1840

Honoré Daumier made this lithograph, “Pour lors… nous… sommes dans le pétrin,” using a greasy crayon on a flat Bavarian limestone block, a process which perfectly captures the anxiety of 19th century Parisian life. The drawing, as its title suggests, plunges us into the thick of it. We see a baker, caught in the act of falsifying the weight of the loaves—under pressure, no doubt, to make ends meet. The artist relishes the texture of the lithographic stone; the deep, rich blacks that can be achieved, as well as the subtle tonal gradations. Consider the baker’s hair, sketched with wild abandon, mirroring the desperation of his predicament. And then there's the basket he's squeezing shut. Its woven construction speaks to a long history of craft, but here, the basket is a tool of exploitation. Daumier implicates us, the consumers, in this drama of labor and livelihood. The print is not just an image, but a social critique, made palpable through the very materials of its making.