Collectors of prints

Collectors of prints, dated around 1870 and held at the Museum of Fine Arts Ghent, depicts the culture of print collecting that was widespread among educated French bourgeois in the nineteenth century. Print collecting combined aesthetic pleasure, scholarly knowledge, and the social performance of connoisseurship in a form accessible to buyers of moderate means — original paintings were expensive, but fine impressions of historical engravings and lithographs were available at prices that middle-class professionals could afford. Daumier documented print collectors repeatedly throughout his career, and these works carry a gentle irony: the absorbed, self-important collector examining his acquisitions is both a figure of comedy and an expression of genuine love for graphic art. The Ghent museum, which holds important works of Dutch, Flemish, and French art, acquired this canvas as part of its nineteenth-century French collection. The print collecting subject was also personally resonant: Daumier himself worked in print media for most of his professional life.

The collector or collectors handling and examining prints create a composition structured around the objects being scrutinized. Daumier handles the absorbed figures with his characteristic gestural economy, using their bent postures and concentrated expressions to communicate the private pleasure.