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The Troubadour

Honoré Daumier1868–73

The Cleveland Museum of Art

The Cleveland Museum of Art
Cleveland, United States

The troubadour, a medieval traveling poet and entertainer, was a popular subject in 19th-century French art. Associated with chivalry and courtly love, the theme reflects a broader, romantic fascination with France's medieval past. Although Daumier was particularly inspired by the troubadour paintings of French Rococo artist Jean-Antoine Watteau of the 1700s, he rendered the subject here in a powerful style of simplified, muscular form that appealed to modern artists of his own time.

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  • Title: The Troubadour
  • Creator: Honoré Daumier (French, 1808–1879)
  • Date Created: 1868–73
  • Physical Dimensions: Framed: 99.5 x 73 x 8 cm (39 3/16 x 28 3/4 x 3 1/8 in.); Unframed: 83.6 x 56.8 cm (32 15/16 x 22 3/8 in.)
  • Provenance: Count Armand Doria [1824-1896] Orrouy, France, (Armand Doria sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, May 4-5, 1899 (no. 132), sold to Ambroise Vollard), (Ambroise Vollard, Paris, sold to Paul Cassirer), (Paul Cassirer, Berlin), Eduard Fuchs [1870-1940], Berlin-Zehlendorf, by descent to his wife, Margaret Fuchs, Margaret Fuchs, Paris and New York, consigned to Justin K. Thannhauser, (Justin K. Thannhauser, New York, sold to Leonard C. Hanna, Jr.), Leonard C. Hanna Jr., [1889-1957], Cleveland, OH, bequeathed to the Cleveland Museum of Art, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Type: Painting
  • Rights: CC0
  • External Link: https://clevelandart.org/art/1958.23
  • Medium: oil on fabric
  • Inscriptions: Signed in lower right: h.D. [reinforced]
  • Fun Fact: Daumier was called the “Michelangelo of caricature” and especially renowned for his cartoons and drawings satirizing 19th-century French politics and society.
  • Department: Modern European Painting and Sculpture
  • Culture: France, 19th century
  • Credit Line: Bequest of Leonard C. Hanna, Jr.
  • Collection: Mod Euro - Painting 1800-1960
  • Accession Number: 1958.23
The Cleveland Museum of Art

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