Abstract

This essay a) examines the manner in which a key contemporary text has been misrepresented and dismissed in the scholarship on Daumier b) provides the first full critical analysis of Philipon’s article in its correct context, highlighting its importance for our understanding of Daumier’s fluctuating popularity and his relationship with the newspaper-reading public, his evolving attitude towards his own lithographic work for the illustrated press, and, above all, the collaborative manner in which much of that work was produced c) draws out some of the uncomfortable conclusions that this problematization of Daumier’s authorship entails.