Ratapoil

model 1851, cast c. 1891

Honoré Daumier

Artist, French, 1808 - 1879

This free-standing bronze sculpture shows a thin man wearing a tall, crumpled hat, an ill-fitting coat, and worn shoes, standing and leaning on a long cudgel resembling a cane. His body faces us in this photograph, and he looks over his shoulder to our right in profile. His goatee is so exaggerated that it creates a beak-like form reaching almost to his chest beneath an upward sweeping mustache that is wider than his face. He has a bull-like nose and bulging eyes, and he might be bald. The top of his tall hat seems to have been partially crushed, and it curves away from us. His double-breasted, knee-length coat has a high collar, and it sweeps open over his hips. His left hand, on our right, holds the coat open so he can slip that hand into his pants pocket. He holds and leans onto the long cudgel on our left so his hips sway to our right. His long pants cover thin legs, and his toes poke through the front of his tattered shoes. The low, square base he stands on is textured as if roughly modeled before being cast. The sculpture is shown against a fog-gray background.

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Viewed from any direction, the swaying, strutting Ratapoil is Daumier's brilliant stab at the political ambitions of Louis-Napoleon, who would proclaim himself emperor of France in 1852. Daumier strongly supported the nascent French democracy and used his art—both his drawn caricatures of Ratapoil that appeared in the satiric journal Charivari and this vigorous sculpture—to oppose the idea of a return to monarchy. He fashioned Ratapoil (Ratskin) as one of Louis-Napoleon's agents-provocateurs, a cudgel-carrying bully whose job was to stir up crowds, using bribes and force when necessary, to convince the people to return Louis-Napoleon to power.

Daumier used a rough-modeled realism to detail the character of Ratapoil. With hat crumpled and smashed down over a bony skull, eye glaring, nose broken, mustache and beard pointed to a Satanic extreme, and outmoded frockcoat and trousers streaming over an emaciated torso, Ratapoil seems a mix of self-confident dandy and has-been thug. Sweeping diagonals invigorate the figure: Ratapoil's neck and jaw turn hard to one side, shoulders, chest, and right leg propel him forward as he arches his back in a dramatic curve, grasping his club behind him.

Though less than 18 inches tall, Ratapoil, as political symbol, was given monumental status by Daumier's fellow Republicans. Because of his fear of government reprisals after Louis-Napoleon's successful coup in 1851, Daumier reportedly hid the statuette for the rest of his life. The original clay Ratapoil is lost; the National Gallery's bronze version is one of a series cast from a plaster model in 1891, thirteen years after the artist's death.

More information on this object can be found in the Gallery publication European Sculpture of the Nineteenth Century, which is available as a free PDF https://www.nga.gov/content/dam/ngaweb/research/publications/pdfs/european-sculpture-19th-century.pdf

On View

West Building Ground Floor, Gallery G8

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    bronze

  • Credit Line

    Rosenwald Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 43.5 x 16.4 x 18.2 cm (17 1/8 x 6 7/16 x 7 3/16 in.)

  • Accession

    1951.17.3

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

(Henri M. Petiet, Paris), c. 1940; private collection, Paris; (Henri M. Petiet, Paris), by 1950; sold March 1951 to Lessing Julius Rosenwald, Jenkintown, Pennsylvania;[1] gift 1951 to NGA.
[1] Petiet, letters of 23 October, 10 November, 22 December 1950, and 17 October 1953, to Elizabeth Mongan; Mongan, letter of 9 March 1951, to Henri Petiet; Rosenwald Papers, NGA Archives, Box 44. The cast may be identical to the "bronze of the first edition" in Paris that Jean Goriany, New York, first offered Mr. Rosenwald for sale in December 1939; Goriany, letter of 14 December 1939 to Elizabeth Mongan; Rosenwald Papers, NGA Archives, Box 14.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1958

  • Honoré Daumier, Anniversary Exhibition, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1958, no. 22, repro.

1960

  • Honoré Daumier, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1960, no cat.

1969

  • Daumier Sculpture: A Critical and Comparative Study, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1969, no. 37b, repro.

1974

  • Nineteenth-Century Sculpture, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1974, unnumbered checklist.

1979

  • Honoré Daumier 1808-1879, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1979, no. 65, repro.

1980

  • The Romantics to Rodin: French Nineteenth-Century Sculpture from North American Collections, Los Angeles County Mus. of Art; Minneapolis Inst. of Arts; Detroit Inst. of Arts; Indianapolis Mus. of Art; Mus. of Fine Arts, Boston, 1980-1981, no. 89.

Bibliography

1952

  • Gobin, Maurice. Daumier Sculpteur, 1808-1879. Geneva, 1952: no. 61.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 150.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 133, repro.

1994

  • Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1994: 58, repro.

2000

  • Butler, Ruth, and Suzanne Glover Lindsay, with Alison Luchs, Douglas Lewis, Cynthia J. Mills, and Jeffrey Weidman. European Sculpture of the Nineteenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 2000: 189-197, color repro.

Inscriptions

incised probably in the foundry model and enhanced after casting, left corner of the self-base at rear: DAUMIER; cold-stamped beside the signature: 17; apparently inset on rear rim of self-base, the Siot-Decauville cachet: SIOT-DECAUVILLE / FONDEUR / PARIS; on underside of self-base, on linen tape: TL 17092 / Alverthorpe

Markings

FM: Siot-Decauville

Wikidata ID

Q63809566

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