Rue Transnonain, April 15, 1834 (1834): Art, History and Details

Rue Transnonain, April 15, 1834 (1834) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Honoré Daumier (French, 1808–1879).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Although it supported the French middle class, the government of Louis-Philippe (1773–1850) oppressed workers. The rebellion of the silk weavers of Lyon, who toiled 18 hours a day for a pittance, touched off a sympathetic revolt in Paris. During the uprising, sniper fire directed toward government troops emanated from a house on the Rue Transnonain. In retaliation, the soldiers indiscriminately massacred residents, including old men, women, and children. In this haunting image, Daumier focused attention on the human suffering and loss of life, emphasizing the innocence of the victims and the violence of their deaths. Between 1830 and 1835 censorship laws had been suspended, allowing Charles Philipon (1806–1862) to publish a number of periodicals like L'Association Mensuelle, where Rue Transnonain appeared. Daumier, one of the most accomplished and prolific lithographers of the 19th century, often provided caricatures criticizing contemporary political abuses or satirizing French society.

Object facts

• Title: Rue Transnonain, April 15, 1834
• Date: 1834
• Creator attribution: Honoré Daumier (French, 1808–1879)
• Culture: France, 19th century
• Type: Print
• Technique: lithograph
• Dimensions: Sheet: 36.5 x 55 cm (14 3/8 x 21 5/8 in.); Image: 28.6 x 44 cm (11 1/4 x 17 5/16 in.)
• Collection: PR - Lithograph
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 1924.809

A detail from the museum

Although government censors approved publication of this print, they seized it upon its exhibition in a Parisian print shop.

Collection credit

Gift of Ralph King

Further reading listed by the museum

• Freedman, Leonard, and Gibson A. Danes. Looking at Modern Painting. New York: Norton, 1961.
• “Lists of Objects in the Exhibition.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 16, no. 9 (1929): 159–75.
• Catalogue of an exhibition of the art of lithography: commemorating the sesquicentennial of its invention, 1798-1948. [Cleveland]: The Cleveland Museum of Art, November 11, 1948-January 2, 1949. Published as: Rue Transnonain, Le 15 Avril 1834

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.