Artwork
La Visite a la nourrice
La Visite a la nourrice is an ink print by the Romanticist artist Honoré Daumier. It dates from 1845 and is held in the collection of the National Gallery of Art.
About this work
Overview
Honoré Daumier’s lithograph La Visite à la nourrice, produced in 1845, presents a domestic scene in which a well‑dressed man leans to kiss a woman who cradles an infant. The figures are set against a dim interior, the woman’s white headscarf and dark dress contrasting with the man’s dark suit. Their expressions convey a mixture of surprise and amusement, while the baby watches attentively.
Subject & Meaning
The image captures a bourgeois family’s visit to a wet‑nurse, a common arrangement in mid‑nineteenth‑century France for child‑rearing among the middle classes. By focusing on this intimate moment, Daumier highlights the social conventions surrounding childcare, gender roles, and the subtle power relations embedded in such household transactions.
Technique & Style
Executed as a lithographic print, the work relies on bold line work and stark tonal contrasts to model the figures and suggest depth within a limited space. The composition’s emphasis on everyday emotion aligns with the realist tendencies of the period, while the exaggerated gestures hint at the satirical edge characteristic of Daumier’s graphic oeuvre.
History & Provenance
Created during the July Monarchy, the print was circulated among the satirical journals that Daumier contributed to, such as La Caricature and Le Charivari. These publications used lithography to disseminate social commentary widely, and La Visite à la nourrice functioned as part of that broader campaign of visual critique.
Context
In the 1840s France, the practice of employing wet nurses reflected both economic necessity and class distinction. Daumier’s choice to depict this routine underscores the growing public interest in domestic life as a site of political and moral observation, linking private moments to broader debates about the monarchy, republicanism, and social reform.
Artist & collection
Artist
Honoré-Victorin Daumier was a French painter, sculptor, and printmaker, whose many works offer commentary on the social and political life in France, from the Revolution of 1830 to the fall of the Second French Empire in 1870.
Papa contemplant l'image de son image
Rencontre de la payse
Ah! monsieur... faut pas lui rire comme ça...
Un nouveau nez
Ça n'empêche que ça vaut encore mieux....
Au novel an, visite... a la tante Rabourdin
Papa contemplates a likeness of his likeness
Ce matin avant l'aurore...
Une Nouvelle connaissance
Inconvénient de visiter sans précaution un entresol...