Robert Macaire
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Robert Macaire is a satirical character — a swindler and confidence man — created by publisher Charles Philipon and developed into an extended caricature series by Honoré Daumier for the Paris newspaper Le Charivari.[1]
Caricaturana
Between 1836 and 1838, Daumier produced 101 lithographs starring Macaire for Le Charivari, published together as the series Caricaturana; Philipon supplied the sharp captions accompanying each image, making the series a collaboration between Daumier's drawing and Philipon's wit.[1] In each plate, Macaire appears in a different guise — a banker, a doctor, a lawyer, a restaurateur, an architect, an educator — perpetrating a new swindle on an unsuspecting mark.[1]
Satirical purpose
The character embodied the archetypal confidence man, and the series used his schemes to satirize widespread credulity and to criticize the stock speculation and professional corruption of France's July Monarchy.[1] Along with Henri Monnier's character Joseph Prudhomme, Macaire gave caricaturists a composite stand-in they could use to needle bourgeois and political targets without directly depicting, and risking prosecution over, a real person.[1]
Legacy
Caricaturana is regarded as one of Daumier's major caricature cycles, and the Macaire character is frequently cited as an early example of a recurring satirical type used across a long-running series, a format later common in editorial cartooning.[1]