Plate 32: What in the devil Macaire!, from 'Caricaturana,' published in Les Robert Macaires

Plate 32: What in the devil Macaire!, from 'Caricaturana,' published in Les Robert Macaires

Honoré Daumier

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

- What the devil Macaire! You, in charge of a charity office! Are you going to keep everything for yourself? Won't you give something to your poor friend Bertrand? - Poor, you say! You, who lives on nothing, who's not in the habit of spending. What about me, who can't do without servants, horses, mistresses, luxuries of every kind?... I'm the poorest man in my neighborhood. The money raised by charity belongs rightly to me.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Plate 32: What in the devil Macaire!, from 'Caricaturana,' published in Les Robert MacairesPlate 32: What in the devil Macaire!, from 'Caricaturana,' published in Les Robert MacairesPlate 32: What in the devil Macaire!, from 'Caricaturana,' published in Les Robert MacairesPlate 32: What in the devil Macaire!, from 'Caricaturana,' published in Les Robert MacairesPlate 32: What in the devil Macaire!, from 'Caricaturana,' published in Les Robert Macaires

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.