Henri MONNIER (1805-1877) Portrait of Mr Prudhomme... Lot 46

Henri MONNIER (1805-1877) Portrait of Mr Prudhomme with a cigar Ink and watercolor, signed and dated August 1871 or 72 down left, monogrammed in the center and inscribed "Oter l'homme de sa ... to isolate him". 28.3 x 18 cm Monsieur Prudhomme is a caricature of the nineteenth-century French bourgeois, created by Henry Monnier. Created by Henry Monnier, Monsieur Prudhomme appeared in 1830 in the Scènes populaires, drawn with a pen, then in the play Grandeur et décadence de M. Joseph Prudhomme (1852), then in the two volumes of the collection of drawings Mémoires de Monsieur Joseph Prudhomme (1857), then in Monsieur Prudhomme chef de brigands (1860). Honoré de Balzac said of this emblematic character, who was silly, fat, conformist and sententious, that he was "the illustrious type of the bourgeois of Paris".