The Danger of Marrying a Talented Woman 1847

Curator: This lithograph by Honoré Daumier is titled "The Danger of Marrying a Talented Woman," now held at the Harvard Art Museums. Editor: It's striking, really. The stark contrast of the lithographic lines amplifies the almost grotesque expressions of the couple. There is something unsettling here. Curator: Daumier was a master of social commentary. Look closely—her book isn't just an object; it’s a symbol of her perceived transgression against societal expectations for women of that era. Editor: And the way Daumier uses lithography, the greasy crayon on stone, speaks to the grittiness of bourgeois life itself, a critique of the emerging middle class and their anxieties about gender roles. Curator: Exactly. We see the fear of a disruption to the patriarchal order, played out through the exaggerated fear of the husband. What is she reading? What power is she accessing? Editor: Perhaps she is singing. We could interpret the score, the dress, the setting of the curtain and the cabinet, as a stage, where the man is the audience, confronted by her performance. Curator: Daumier really captured the social anxieties, the shifting sands of gender roles. Editor: This piece certainly prompts consideration of how anxieties around art and talent were projected onto women.