A fascinating print that appeared in the January 1833 edition of La Charge, a satirical magazine sponsored by the French government as a rival to the weekly La Caricature.
The long caption in the lower margin sets the scene as an alien stumbles into a museum and admires the curious (laughable) relics from a century prior: “Un jour le Voyageur, aux Petites-Maisons / Où dorment les débris de tant de mirmidons, / Curieux d’admirer leur, risible dépouille, / En secouera gaiment la poussière et la rouille, / Et, pensant aux hauts-faits de ces nombreux zéros, / Avec hilarité contemplera leurs peaux.”
Elizabeth Menon unpacks the image and its symbols in detail: “In the print, a voyager happens upon a collection of items in space suggesting a museum of natural history. These symbolic relics describe events, groups and individuals recognizable from the first years of the July Monarchy. The costume of Père Enfantin (the Saint-Simonist leader) a patriotic saw, the nose of a Republican, and the skin of a liberated woman are but a few symbolic items to be found here. The lobster in the upper right corner was a symbol for Charles X, the deposed King, who was accused of ‘walking backwards’ in terms of human rights and equality during his reign. The ‘patriotic saw’ likely referred to Persil (called ‘perscie’ in the satiric press) and his responsibility for censorship under Louis-Philippe. The ‘republican nose,’ reminiscent of costumes belonging to the Théâtre des Funambules, describes the character of the Republicans, best known for their biting caricatures of government leaders. The objects found in the print were perceived as artifacts in 1833 due to the drastic changes that had occurred in the few short years since the July Revolution. It was a period characterized by uneasy transitions within government, broken promises, and mismatched goals.”
The image is given additional bite as the voyager is depicted as a noble savage, a key figure in the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century French imagination. Holding up a complete skin of “une femme libre,” this may be a comment on the complete abolition of slavery that came into effect in England in the same year that this image was created.
“La Charge published on a weekly basis for only slightly over a year (from October 1832 until February 1834). It resembled La Caricature in format, with each issue including one caricature which often depicted republican politicians in grotesque ways and seems to have always come from the same anonymous artist. It attracted little attention and vanished almost without leaving a trace” (Goldstein).
Signed “H. L. D.”, Menon speculates that it may be by Honoré Daumier, but this has not been confirmed elsewhere.
Goldstein, Justin, Robert Justin, Censorship of Political Caricature in Nineteenth Century France, (Kent, Ohio) 1989, p.148; Menon, Elizabeth, “The Utopian Mayeux: Henri de Saint-Simon meets the bossu à la mode” in Canadian Journal of History, XXXIII, (August, 1998), pp.249-277.
