Les Tortures de la Mode (The Tortures of Fashion), No. 19: Cheveux à la Titus

This lithograph satirizes women's fashion obsession through four vignettes depicting the painful rituals of hairstyling. The upper scene shows a gentleman bowing in mock admiration while a woman displays her elaborate coiffure; below, close-ups expose the grimacing faces and physical contortions required to achieve fashionable curls. The print belongs to a robust tradition of social satire—descended from Hogarth and Rowlandson, perfected by Daumier—that used caricature to mock human folly. By exaggerating facial expressions and postures, the artist transforms fashion into a source of comedy and critique, presenting women as willing victims of vanity. This type of comic serial imagery directly preceded the modern comic strip, establishing conventions of sequential narrative and visual humor still central to graphic storytelling.