Le SAUVETAGE D'ARION. Par un gros poisson dilettante Ce tenor fut sauvé grâce à sa fraîche voix. Maint chanteur que l'Opéra vante, Dans une pareille tourmente, N'attendrirait pas un anchois. Extrait d'un feuilleton de Mr. Berlioz.

Trustman, Benjamin A., Trustman, Julia M. · 1842

In this print, Daumier depicts Arion is being saved from drowning by a fish. During the 1840's, a quarrel between painters of the classic and romantic schools had fully flared up. Delacroix asked the "loaded" question: "Who is going to liberate us from the old Greeks?" Daumier succeeded to answer it his own way by showing historic personalities such as Hercules, Pygmalion or Agamemnon in absurd situations.