A Fair Reward Presented in 1800 by the Un-Prudish Savages of North America to Louis-Philippe of Orléans, surgeon and expatriate, but still a Frenchman. (I salute you, gracious Black Lady, the Lord is with you.) A Namaquan Ave Maria, plate 466

Discussion

FROM THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO’S CATALOG

In this print Daumier transformed an actual event from Louis Philippe’s years in exile in America (1796–99) into a bawdy bedroom farce. To thank him for successfully providing medical aid to a member of his tribe, a Native American chief invited Louis Philippe to sleep between his grandmother and great aunt—an offer he could not politely refuse. The depiction of Native Americans as tattooed and sagging figures with eager sexual appetites reflects 19th-century racial prejudices and inverts the bourgeois societal and bodily ideals signaled by the pile of discarded European clothing on the left.

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