The Human Comedy

The Salon of 1852 opened in April at the Palais-Royal, four months after the president, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, had seized full power in a coup. This long frieze was on show there. It sets a puppet booth lettered Théâtre Guignol among the famous dead of the past. The performers on its little stage are gods, including a helmeted figure wielding a stick and a small winged Cupid, while children and grave old men gather in front to watch. At the far left, beside a barrel lying on its side, a near-naked Diogenes raises his lantern. The state bought the canvas from Hamon that same year and sent it out again for the World's Fair of 1855. It later hung in the Louvre, spent three decades at the château of Compiègne from 1953, and came to the Musée d'Orsay in 1984.