This tall, thin, rather shabbily dressed man, his shoulders bent and his hands in his pockets, gazes at the myriads of prints and drawings on show in a print dealer's gallery. Absorbed in his own private world, he resists the urge to actively handle the works – perhaps he is too poor to buy. During the 1850s and early 1860s, one of Daumier's favourite subjects was the bourgeoisie (middle and lower middle classes) as print collectors. Sometimes Daumier paints them as merely curious passers-by gazing at displays of prints for sale or, as here, actually inside a dealer's gallery. There are several oil versions similar to this one in which a solitary figure stands, sometimes rifling through sheets in a portfolio or, as in this work, looking at the prints on the wall, with the folder at his feet.