Honoré Daumier's lithograph — his signature medium, printed in crayon-worked grease on stone — shows a stout, elaborately dressed woman gesturing with theatrical condescension toward a slight, hat-in-hand young man who looks up at her with wide-eyed appeal. The title, Fortune makes one forget one's friends, frames a scene of class betrayal: new money turning its back on old loyalty. Daumier exaggerates her bulk and self-importance against his diminutive, hollowed figure with precisely the corporeal cruelty he inherited from Rowlandson and Gillray. His serial work for La Caricature and Le Charivari — hundreds of numbered plates targeting bourgeois vanity and social climbing — forms the direct bridge between 18th-century British print satire and the sequential narrative panels that would define the modern comic strip.
About this artifact
- Creator
- #Honoré_Daumier_Künstler_in
- Date
- 1837
- Rights
- Public domain — free to view, share, and reuse.
- Restoration
- Digitally restored and hosted by ComicBooks.com.
Part of our mission to preserve and restore the public-domain heritage of the medium.