Twee jongemannen met hun eerste sigaar 1843

This lithograph, "Two Young Men With Their First Cigar," was created by Honoré Daumier, a French printmaker known for his social and political commentary. Here, Daumier used lithographic crayon and ink to depict two young men experiencing the pleasures of smoking for the first time. The lithographic process itself is crucial to understanding Daumier's work. A design is drawn on a stone with a greasy crayon, then treated with chemicals so that ink adheres only to the drawn areas. This allows for the relatively quick and cheap production of images that could be widely disseminated in newspapers and journals. The very accessibility of lithography allowed Daumier to reach a broad audience with his satirical observations about Parisian society. Cigars, like the suits worn by these young men, were potent symbols of bourgeois culture and expanding capitalism. Daumier used the material means of his art to critique the very society that made it possible.