The Conqueror Menelaus

Daumier's Ancient History series satirized the classical instruction dispensed by the educational institutions in France and spoofed the ennobling characteristics supposedly bestowed by popular history paintings. Daumier's classical heroes do not possess ideal bodies or morals, but instead display all-too-human imperfections. The Conqueror Menelaus, the first print of the series, shows a pompous Menelaus strutting through a ruined battlefield while his beautiful wife Helen thumbs her nose at him behind his back.