The Troubadour
Medium
oil on fabric
Dimensions
{"framed":{"height":0.995,"width":0.73,"depth":0.08},"unframed":{"height":0.836,"width":0.568}}
Classification
Painting
Department
Modern European Painting and Sculpture
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Bequest of Leonard C. Hanna Jr.
Accession Number
1958.23
Tags
About this artwork
The troubadour, a medieval traveling poet and entertainer, was a popular subject in 19th-century French art. Associated with chivalry and courtly love, the theme reflects a broader, romantic fascination with France's medieval past. Although Daumier was particularly inspired by the troubadour paintings of French Rococo artist Jean-Antoine Watteau of the 1700s, he rendered the subject here in a powerful style of simplified, muscular form that appealed to modern artists of his own time.