Oedipe chez le Sphinx. Ce vilain animal a tête d´antiquaire, Lui dit: Pourquoi, monsieur, ne fait-il pas compter Sur une pyramide? Alors sans hésiter Oedipe répondit: C´est qu´elles sont près Caire. Pour un vieux calembourg on peut s´en contenter. (Cours de Mr. Raoul-Rochette.)

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

Oedipus is performing in front of the Sphinx at the entrance of a cave. This prints hides a "play on words". The word "précaire" may be understood as "difficult" but also as "près Caire" which means "close to Cairo" and is pronounced the same way in French. Could it be that Oedipus did not always have the right answer to intellectual questions as is being assumed in antiquity? For a more serious view of the matter, have a look at Ingres similar painting from 1808, which can be seen at the Louvre in Paris and which Daumier surely was aware of. During this time, 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