Rue Transnonain, le 15 Avril 1834, 1834
Lithograph, 13 3/8 x 18 5/16 in. (33.9 x 46.5 cm)
Everett V. Meeks, B.A. 1901, Fund
1982.120.4
Violence erupted in the streets of Paris in 1834 in response to a new wave of laws issued by King Louis Philippe to limit freedoms of association and expression. Barricades were hastily thrown up in working-class quarters of the capital and smashed by government troops the next day. On the rue Transnonain in the Marais, a riot squad entered a building believed to be the source of shots that had killed an officer, and the troops gunned down a dozen occupants.
In this monumental lithograph, Daumier memorialized this event, which had occurred just three blocks from his home. By portraying the carnage of a family in their bedroom, the artist heightened the sense of outrage, creating a picture of ultimate trespass. Daumier's figures are clearly innocent victims: a young male in a nightshirt, a baby, an elderly man. Daumier chose to depict the moment of eerie calm after the violence; terror exists only in traces, in the bloodstains and the overturned chair. Baudelaire said of the image, "Only silence and death reign."
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