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The Phrygian cap seems to be everywhere during the Revolution.

After Jacobin control faded, with its repression of exuberant social life as well as political diversity, the following years saw a rebirth of open pleasures. This image focuses on fashionable men and women enjoying the good life. Some contemporaries…

In September 1793, in response to the unwillingness of the municipal government of Lyon to enforce the legislature’s laws, the Republic sent the deputies and Committee of Public Safety members Georges Couthon and Jean–Marie Collot d’Herbois with a…

This hand–tinted engraving depicts the storming of the Tuileries Palace by what appear to be small groups of well–organized soldiers of the Marseilles National Guard. The positive image of the sans–culottes is reinforced by commentaries that…

Napoleon cultivated the intense personal loyalty of his troops with engravings like this one, which suggests a personal interest in the ordinary soldier.

Napoleon is mocked through this diminutive portrayal of the former conqueror.

This engraving pairs images of slaves and free blacks in four categories: dress, deportment, entertainment, and access to water. Although there are differences between the pairs, these are not as great as they might be.

Many scholars would argue that Louis XVI’s finest moment came from his bravery at his execution. Even when he was forbidden from saying a last few words to those gathered to see him executed, he remained unflinching, retaining his composure. Here one…

In this artistic rendition, on 12 July 1789 Camille Desmoulins stands on a table and encourages his listeners to rise against the threat to the Estates–General. He, and others of his ilk, would be successful in bringing about the fall of the Bastille…