The Past, the Present, the Future, plate 349

Honoré Victorin Daumier’s caricatures of French King Louis-Philippe (reigned 1830–1848) used satire as a form of political critique. This print, published in the satirical journal La Caricature in 1834, depicts the king with an exaggerated pear-shaped head and three faces, reflecting the sharp shift in public opinion of the king—from inspiring hope at his coronation to inciting despair once his reign took hold. Daumier’s caricatures did get him into trouble: his earlier print, Gargantua, an even more biting critique of the monarchy’s gluttonous economic policies, resulted in the artist and his publisher Charles Philipon being sentenced to six months in jail in 1832.