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“Sir . . . Sir . . . Siiir . . . Christ, it’s annoying to have the runs when the supervisor is supervising!,” plate 13 from Professors and Rascals

Honoré-Victorin Daumier (French, 1808-1879)

1846

Medium: Lithograph in black on white wove paper
Classification: Print
Dimensions: Image: 18 × 25.4 cm (7 1/8 × 10 in.); Sheet: 24.7 × 33 cm (9 3/4 × 13 in.)
Culture: France
Museum: Art Institute of Chicago, Prints and Drawings
Credit line: Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Carter H. Harrison
Rights: Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
Who can see it: Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed

About this work

Honoré Daumier’s satirical works capture comic moments in daily life; the series Professors and Rascals illustrates scenes from elementary school classrooms. In this print, a young boy desperately attempts to summon the teacher’s attention to be excused to the bathroom, but the teacher is asleep. In another, a student grimaces after a teacher finds a novel smuggled inside a textbook. Lithographs such as these, and their accompanying captions, were published widely in magazines in 19th-century France.