- Les bourgeois.... ça n'est jamais content..... il faudra bientôt quand ils demandent du veau qu'on leur fournisse du perdreau!...

Trustman, Benjamin A., Trustman, Julia M. · 1858

A butcher is complaining that his customers are never satisfied, and says that soon he won't bother giving them what they ask for. This print has a similarity (except for the figure of the housewife) with Daumier's painting "The Butcher" (presently in the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard). BUTCHERS. On February 24, 1858 a new law ended a monopoly from which some 500 meat stalls and butcheries in Paris had benefited for many years, giving way to free enterprise. Even the scales, manipulated by the butchers in a rather creative way, were suddenly standardized under a governmental system of control. This change, effecting everyday life, motivated Daumier to produce 11 lithographs (DR 3010-3021) as well as a number of drawings and paintings, covering the subject. MESSIEURS LES BOUCHERS, a series of 3 numbered prints which appeared in the CHARIVARI in 1858.