Honoré Daumier (1808–79)
Le Malade imaginaire (The Hypochondriac)
c. 1850
Black chalks, black ink wash, watercolor and touches of gouache, with pen and point of the brush in brown and black-gray ink
Samuel Courtauld Trust: Samuel Courtauld Gift, 1934
Known for his acerbic caricatures, Honoré Daumier here interprets a scene from Molière's Malade imaginaire. A patient is visited by a doctor, who lectures self-importantly at the bedside. Terrified, the miserable man focuses his attention on the doctor's assistant, who holds an exaggeratedly large clyster, used to administer an enema.