Comment on entrera
Honoré Daumier
(French, 1808–1879)
Comment on entrera à l'exposition universelle et comment on en sortira (How one enters the World's Fair and how one leaves it), 1855
Lithograph
Gift of Eugene L. Garbaty, 1954.157
Visitors are shown entering and leaving the great hall of
the Palace of Industry at the Paris Exposition universelle (World’s Fair) of 1855. They enter with heads held high, hoop skirts unfurled, and top hats intact. They leave as haggard, deflated silhouettes. The overstimulation of a day at the exposition is probably to blame for their flattened state.