Washerwomen Descending a Quai Staircase (1888): Art, History and Details

Washerwomen Descending a Quai Staircase (1888) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Alexandre Lunois (French, 1863–1916); Honoré Daumier (French, 1808–1879).

The work and its context

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

Alexandre Lunois worked extensively in lithography, a relatively recent invention during his time that was rarely used by artists, making both reproductive and original works. This print reinterprets Honoré Daumier’s Washerwomen of the Quai d’Anjou, an 1850 canvas depicting laundresses carrying heavy bundles on a staircase adjacent to Paris’s Seine River. Although Lunois worked closely from Daumier’s painting, he reinterpreted some details, such as the shadows on the woman’s face, emphasizing the strenuousness of her labor.

Object facts

• Title: Washerwomen Descending a Quai Staircase
• Date: 1888
• Creator attribution: Alexandre Lunois (French, 1863–1916); Honoré Daumier (French, 1808–1879)
• Culture: France, 19th century
• Type: Print
• Technique: transfer lithograph
• Dimensions: Image: 57.1 x 41.8 cm (22 1/2 x 16 7/16 in.); Sheet: 64.7 x 49 cm (25 1/2 x 19 5/16 in.)
• Collection: PR - Lithograph
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 2021.141

A detail from the museum

An impression of this print was selected for display at the prestigious annual exhibition of the Société des Artistes Français in 1888.

Collection credit

Carole W. and Charles B. Rosenblatt Endowment Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Béraldi, Henri. Les Graveurs du XIXe siècle. Paris: L. Conquet, 1885.
• André, Edouard. Alexandre Lunois, peintre, graveur et lithographe. Paris: H. Floury, 1914.
• Salsbury, Britany. Degas and the Laundress: Women, Work, and Impressionism Exh. Cat. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2023.

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.