Ratapoil

Honoré Daumier

National Gallery of Art

This free-standing bronze sculpture shows a thin man wearing a tall, crumpled hat, an ill-fitting coat, and worn shoes, standing and leaning on a long cudgel resembling a cane. His body faces us in this photograph, and he looks over his shoulder to our right in profile. His goatee is so exaggerated that it creates a beak-like form reaching almost to his chest beneath an upward sweeping mustache that is wider than his face. He has a bull-like nose and bulging eyes, and he might be bald. The top of his tall hat seems to have been partially crushed, and it curves away from us. His double-breasted, knee-length coat has a high collar, and it sweeps open over his hips. His left hand, on our right, holds the coat open so he can slip that hand into his pants pocket. He holds and leans onto the long cudgel on our left so his hips sway to our right. His long pants cover thin legs, and his toes poke through the front of his tattered shoes. The low, square base he stands on is textured as if roughly modeled before being cast. The sculpture is shown against a fog-gray background.