Profitant de la circonstance, pour engager les Chinois à se payer pour deux cent millions d'opium...
Title (alt.):
Taking advantage of the moment, to engage the Chinese to be paid two hundred million in opium.... Charivari
Description:
A French soldier pours opium into a Chinese man's mouth in order to convince the Chinese man to accept a payment of opium in place of cash. This print was made during the LORCHA war (1856-1860), a joint undertaking between France and England. Chinese exports were counter traded with opium imports with the aim of destabilizing the Chinese society with drugs. The prints DR 3096 to DR 3124 deal with the intervention of England and France in China. After the assassination of several Christian missionaries in China, Canton was occupied by European troops in 1857. The treaty of Tien-Tsin accorded to Western states to send ambassadors to the court of the Chinese emperor and to open the harbors to European products. Since China didn’t honor the treaty, the occupation of Beijing followed and in 1860 a new treaty was drawn. CHINA. Daumier was quite unique in expressing common day behaviour in an exotic surrounding, while still making the viewer understand the hidden message without reading the caption. He succeeded in projecting typically French activities of daily life into an exotic setting, which would eventually distort the obvious while leaving the provocative message intact. He chose China as a setting for his lithographs since especially during the period of the early 1840s Chinese curios as well as chinoiseries had become fashionable. The middle class followed the taste set by the King in 1842 who had parts of the palace redecorated in Chinese style. The dresses shown in the “Voyage en Chine” series have been “adjusted” to what a bourgeois Parisian would expect a Chinese to look like, sporting Chinese embroidering, ankle length wide trousers and flat slippers with upturned toes. The ladies’ hair was also worn the Chinese way, while some of the men wore the long, “typically Chinese” braid.
Copyright restrictions may apply. For permission to copy or use this image, contact the Robert D. Farber University Archives and Special Collections Department, Brandeis University Libraries. The following credit line must be included with each item used: Benjamin A. and Julia M. Trustman Collection of Honoré Daumier Lithographs, Robert D. Farber University Archives & Special Collections Department, Brandeis University.
Contact host institution for more information.
Place of origin:
Paris
Notes:
2nd state.
Published in: Le Charivari, December 29, 1858.
Notes (acquisition):
Donated by: Benjamin A. and Julia M. Trustman, 1959.
