Un homme jetant son chien à l'eau

Un homme jetant son chien à l'eau (A Man Throwing His Dog into the Water) is a subject of small-scale social comedy — the dog owner performing an act of discipline or play with his animal in a public space. Such a subject sits at the lighter end of Daumier's observational spectrum: not the political satire of his lawyer and politician subjects, not the social documentary of his working-class subjects, but the brief comedy of everyday life in the city. Daumier observed the Paris of dogs and their owners with the same attentiveness he brought to every other aspect of social life, and the comic relationship between bourgeois man and his animal companion offered material for both gentle humor and social observation. The man throwing his dog into the water — perhaps for training, perhaps as punishment, perhaps simply as play — creates a momentary scene of unguarded behavior that Daumier captures with his characteristic eye for the involuntary.

The action subject requires Daumier to capture a moment of physical action — the throwing gesture, the dog's trajectory or immersion. He handles the human figure in motion with loose, directional brushwork that implies the energy of the throwing action, while the water's surface creates a.