A New Occupation: accordion player beside two weeping women

Share

The title, "A New Occupation," sets up a wry joke: a man with an accordion sits beside two weeping women, as if his instrument has become his livelihood in an unhappy household or on a sorrowful street. The accordion was a cheap, portable instrument that spread widely across Europe and North America in the 19th century, and street musicians who played it became a familiar figure in city life and in the genre scenes artists liked to paint. Prints of this kind often used such comic pairings to comment on poverty, sentiment, or the uneasy ways people made a living, so the humor here depends on the contrast between the cheerful instrument and the grief around it.

More from the Fine Art Prints collection

Snapshots of the Past helps heritage brands, museums, historians and storytellers tell stories with history: historic prints, image licensing and historical storytelling drawn from more than 25 years of research and curation.