The Advocate / Le Défenseur (Counsel for the Defense)

About

The Advocate, also known as Le Défenseur (Counsel for the Defense), is a painting from 1860 by French artist Honoré-Victorin Daumier depicting an advocate passionately arguing his case before a judge and jury while his client expresses a feeling of being slightly unabashed and defiant, appearing to humorously smirk or smile. The painting became one of Daumier's most well-known works, and in April 2024, it started to be parodied as an exploitable image macro on Twitter / X and TikTok via photo slideshows.

Origin

Honoré Daumier painted Le Défenseur between 1860 and 1865^[1] as part of a series of works illustrating the courtrooms of 19th-century France. The painting's focal point is an advocate passionately arguing his case before a judge and jury while his client, a young woman, is beside him looking fairly unabashed and defiant (seen below). It is currently displayed at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, France.

On April 6th, 2024, TikTok^[2] user @scorp0428 posted one of the earliest known viral memetic content using Honoré's Le Défenseur painting, adding the overlay text "She's to talk to him again!" beside the advocate and the text "I wanted to get some news" on top of the woman. The post (shown below, left) amassed over 2 million plays and 252,000 likes in two weeks.

Spread

The same creator,^[3] TikToker @scorp0428, later used TikTok's photo slideshow feature to share an exploitable version of the painting focusing on the lady in the artwork on April 7th, 2024 (shown below), which amassed more than 12 million plays and 2 million likes in two weeks.

On April 23rd, X^[4] user @Anitwtgovt posted a parody of the painting featuring the One Piece characters Rob Luccy and Luffy (shown below, left), which amassed more than 29,000 likes and 2,900 retweets in a day.

On April 15th, 2024, TikTok^[5] user @cherryblossomseeds posted the exploitable paired with the text "She's cramping but won't take the pain killers" and "I want to see how much I can handle." The post (shown below, right) amassed more than 10 million plays and 1.9 million likes in a week.

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

External References