Les plaisirs de l'école de natation, from Croquis Été, published in Le Charivari, June 22, 1858

Art Historical Context

Step into the lively world of mid-19th-century French satire with *Les plaisirs de l'école de natation* (The Pleasures of the Swimming School), a lith from Honoré Daumier's *quis Été* series, published in the satirical newspaper *Le Charari* on June 22, 1858. Attributed to Daumier alongside collaborators Aaron Martinet and Dest, this second-state print captures the humorous antics of men at a swimming school, evoking the carefree spirit of summer. Daumier, a master caricaturist, contributed over 4,000 lithographs to *Le Charivari*, using his keen eye to skewer everyday bourgeois life during France's Second Empire. The image playfully depicts the clumsy joys and mishaps of amateur swimmers—splashing, flailing, and frolicking in the water—highlighting the era's growing popularity of public bathing and recreational swimming as leisure pursuits for urban men. Printed on a modest sheet (10 13/16 × 14 1/8 in.), the lithographic technique allowed for dynamic lines, expressive figures, and rapid production, making Daumier's biting social commentary accessible to a wide audience. Housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Drawings and Prints department (The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, 1962), this work exemplifies lithography's role in democratizing art and humor, offering a witty snapshot of 1850s Parisian pastimes amid industrialization and social change.