Comment! Encore une caricature sur nous, ce matin, dans le Charivari!

Honoré Daumier’s ‘Les Bas Bleu’s’ collection focused on a scathing critique of the Bluestockings in France, compiling of forty-four satirical prints. Demonstrating the extent of trans-national movement of female literary groups, the satire symbolises two female blue stocking authors, addressing another caricature of them which has been published in ‘Le Charivari’, a prominent French newspaper in the nineteenth century which published satirical political cartoons. The degrading of female figures as spinsters, was a common theme in Daumier’s portrayal of female intellectuals, and was reflective of popular attitudes towards educated women. The patriarchal anxiety surrounding the female intellectuals can be seen to emerge in the trends amongst the print culture of the nineteenth century and ultimately reflects the ever increasing presence of women in the public sphere.