Le Tailleur 27 - 1835

Honoré Daumier made this lithograph titled "Le Tailleur". Daumier was working in a period in French history defined by industrialization and urbanization. This artwork comes from a series called "Types Français," and here Daumier presents a ‘type’ of Parisian tailor, emphasizing the class distinctions of the time. The tailor's exaggerated features and posture satirize the bourgeois class. There's an emotional tension here, too, because the tailor embodies aspirations to social mobility, and likely embodies as well the struggle to maintain dignity amidst economic pressures. The humor in Daumier’s caricature is a reflection of the social tensions present in 19th-century Paris, and they capture the complex relationship between identity, labor, and social status. While Daumier's caricatures are humorous, they also speak to broader issues of social inequality. "Le Tailleur" invites us to consider the human dimensions of economic systems.