Two Drinkers

• Honoré Daumier (1808–1879)
• 1860–1879
• Pen and ink with wash over charcoal on paper
• Robert Lehman Collection, 1975
• (1975.1.601)

Honoré Daumier vividly captured mid-nineteenth-century France through spirited drawings and caricatures. As with these two works depicting elderly drinkers, he explored social types and produced numerous studies of their expressions and actions. In one drawing, a weary-looking man leans toward his dazed companion. The other drawing demonstrates Daumier’s use of complex, energetic lines: one man, chest thrust forward and mouth open as if speaking, contrasts with the other, who rests on his elbow while holding a glass.