Les Saltimbanques

Les Saltimbanques (or The Wounded Child) is a painting by Gustave Doré in 1874. It represents a family of saltimbanques struck by tragedy: a child mortally wounded in the head is held in the arms of his mother, following an accident during a tightrope walker's act. His father, seated and slightly set back, watches the scene with deep desolation.

This oil on canvas of 224 × 184 cm is exhibited, from 1937, at the museum of Clermont-Ferrand, before being transferred in 1992 to the Roger-Quilliot museum of art of the same city, at the level reserved for "the art of the nineteenth century in France". In 2011, the painting was voted as the museum's favorite by its visitors.