Who painted Ma femme m'a dit: attends moi cinq minutes...?

Ma femme m'a dit: attends moi cinq minutes... was painted by Honoré Daumier in 1842.

Where can I see Ma femme m'a dit: attends moi cinq minutes...?

Ma femme m'a dit: attends moi cinq minutes... is held by National Gallery of Art.

What movement is Ma femme m'a dit: attends moi cinq minutes...?

Ma femme m'a dit: attends moi cinq minutes... is associated with Romanticism.

Artwork

Ma femme m'a dit: attends moi cinq minutes...

Honoré Daumier , 1842

Ma femme m'a dit: attends moi cinq minutes... is an ink print by the Romanticist artist Honoré Daumier. It dates from 1842 and is held in the collection of the National Gallery of Art.

About this work

Overview

Created in 1842, this lithograph by Honoré Daumier captures a brief domestic exchange: a woman asks her husband to wait five minutes, and his impatient reaction is rendered with comic exaggeration. The work exemplifies Daumier’s prolific output of satirical prints during the politically turbulent years of the July Monarchy and the early Second Republic.

Subject & Meaning

The scene focuses on a man standing beneath a dark, umbrella‑like shape, his loose coat and hand in his pocket emphasizing a casual, yet restless posture. He clutches a small object while a brief caption around the border alludes to the woman’s request, turning an ordinary moment into a commentary on gendered expectations and the friction between public impatience and private domestic life.

Technique & Style

Executed as a lithograph, Daumier employed the traditional stone‑based process, drawing directly onto a prepared limestone surface with greasy crayon before printing with ink. The composition relies on stark contrasts and minimal background lines, allowing the figure to emerge sharply from a vague, shadowy setting, a hallmark of Daumier’s economical yet expressive caricatural style.

History & Provenance

Daumier produced the print for the satirical journals La Caricature and Le Charivari, where his work regularly confronted the era’s political and social hierarchies. The lithograph circulated widely among the period’s readership, reinforcing the artist’s reputation as a visual critic of monarchy, aristocracy, and clerical authority.

Context

Emerging during a time of rapid political change in France, the image reflects broader class tensions that Daumier explored throughout his career. By focusing on a mundane domestic dispute, he subtly linked personal impatience to the larger impatience of a society grappling with shifting power structures and evolving gender roles.

Artist & collection

Artist

Honoré Daumier

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.