A Candidate. “Who do you want?... An upright, conscientious, sober man, an industrialist, a man who doesn't need the government to enrich himself, a man familiar with the law, who knows it well, through practice, very long practice... a long practice of l

Daumier could no longer overtly criticize the French government in his art after King Louis Philippe imprisoned him for six months in 1832. In this print, however, the artist derived his humor not from character assassination but from the buildup the perpetually scheming Robert Macaire, an archetypal villain from French popular literature, gives his preferred candidate, the rotund gentleman standing in the middle.