ALEXANDRIA, VA.- A newly discovered work by 19th century French artist Honore Daumier is heading for auction at The Potomack Company on Feb. 8.

“This is a really important find and adds to his relatively small body of watercolors,” said Anne Craner, Potomack’s Director of Fine Art.

“Les Buveurs,” a wash, pen and ink, watercolor and conte crayon on wove paper, has been authenticated by The Comite Daumier in Paris, which will also include the work in the forthcoming “Catalogue Raisonne de L'Oeuvre de Daumier” by K.E. Maison, now in preparation by the Comite Daumier. It measures 8 x 9 1/2 in. (20 1/2 x 24 3/5 cm.).

In 1832-33, Daumier was imprisoned for satiric images against the government. He painted watercolors sporadically during that time and again in the 1860s. These constitute a small fraction of the approximately 800 works on paper remaining and are some of the most complex images the artist ever made. French poet Charles Beaudelaire declared Daumier the equal of Ingres and Delacroix.

Les Buveurs was created between 1860 and 1864. It depicts two figures from everyday life set against a neutral background, similar to the piece in the Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition "Daumier Drawings" in 1993 by Colta Ives, Margaret Stuffmann and Martin Sonnabend. Typical of Daumier's finished oeuvres, it is constructed in layers of pen and ink, wash, watercolor and conte crayon. "The artist's careful grading of tone may be associated with his concentration on painting,” said Ms. Ives, “and reveals the full extent to which he believed he had to labor to translate his native linear language into an art substantial enough to be taken seriously by collectors."

The National Gallery of Art called Daumier’s career “one of the most unusual in the history of 19th century art.”

Young Daumier, according to author Lorenz Eitner, visited the Louvre with a sketching pad, experimented with lithography at age 14 and went on to produce lithographic characters. For more than 40 years, he worked as a political caricaturist.

The Potomack Company is presenting the Daumier with an estimate of $150,000 to $300,000.