Browse Items (256 total)

The National Assembly also eliminated monasteries, since monks and nuns had increasingly become figures of ridicule. This image depicts the dissolution of the religious orders, rather than the confiscation of lands, as the crucial element in…

This engraving from the Berthault series depicts Stanislas Maillard bravely climbing on a plank over the dry moat surrounding the fortress to accept from one of the soldiers Launay’s "capitulation" of the Bastille.

As 80,000 crowded into the square to watch the execution of Louis XVI, they cannot have been unaware that the guillotine sat where a statue of Louis XV had been. Here Sanson, the executioner, snatches the detached head of Louis XVI to show to the…

In this extraordinary painting stands a formidable and powerful figure of liberty with her pike and cap. As the title of this work suggests, Liberty appears here as a warrior surveying the field of battle from a commanding height. Furthermore, the…

This fascinating print is modeled on Jacques–Louis David’s Oath of the Horatii. In that famous painting, the artist sought to exemplify patriotic virtue by showing an austere father making his sons swear to defend Roman honor. Here this image turns…

The image points out the destruction of the nobility, depicting the arrival in Hell of a "marquis" and several other "aristocrats," described in the legend as "conspirators" and "traitors."

This image demonstrates the necessity of nationalizing church property. It shows a peasant cutting the fingers off a priest’s hands; a nobleman cannot bear to watch, but has no qualms about putting on the gloves the clergyman will no longer need.…

This image shows the three orders unified by religion. The Virgin standing at right in a cloud holds a cross from which rays emanate to three figures representing the clergy, nobility, and Third Estate. A hooded figure with a serpent’s tail,…

The women who arrived, though lightly armed, were no shrinking violets. They insisted that the royal family return to Paris where, in fact, they would find themselves under virtual house arrest.

A slave inspired by the French Revolution’s egalitarianism, Toussaint saw himself as French and struggled for French control of the island of Saint Domingue. Nonetheless, he had no intention of letting whites rule, for he wanted blacks to control…