Artwork
Le bon temps est passé ...
Le bon temps est passé ... is an ink print by the Impressionist artist Honoré Daumier. It dates from 1857 and is held in the collection of the National Gallery of Art.
About this work
Overview
Created in 1857, this lithograph by Honoré Daumier presents four gentlemen dressed in suits and top hats. Their faces are rendered with pronounced, distorted features, giving the scene a satirical tone that aligns with Daumier’s reputation for social critique.
Subject & Meaning
The work’s title, Le bon temps est passé—"the good times are over"—suggests a commentary on the decline of prosperity or the fleeting nature of wealth. By exaggerating the men’s expressions, Daumier lampoons the pretensions of the affluent class within an urban milieu.
Technique & Style
Executed with Daumier’s characteristic lithographic process, the image was drawn on stone using a greasy crayon, allowing swift, bold lines. The caricatural style emphasizes grotesque facial proportions, a hallmark of his satirical prints.
History & Provenance
The print emerged during a period when Daumier was prolific in producing politically and socially charged illustrations for newspapers and journals. Its circulation contributed to his reputation as a keen observer of mid‑nineteenth‑century French society.
Context
Mid‑1800s Paris experienced rapid urbanization and shifting class structures. Daumier’s depiction of well‑dressed men against a city backdrop reflects the tensions between emerging bourgeois confidence and the underlying anxieties of the era.
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.
