# Civil War

- By: Édouard Manet (printed by Lemercier et Compagnie (French, 19th century))
- Date: 1871/73
- Medium: Lithograph in black, with scraping, on ivory chine with red and blue fibers laid down on ivory wove paper (chine collé)
- Classification: Print
- Dimensions: Image: 39.8 × 50.7 cm (15 11/16 × 20 in.); Primary support: 40 × 51 cm (15 3/4 × 20 1/8 in.); Secondary support: 49 × 60.9 cm (19 5/16 × 24 in.)
- Culture: France
- Credit line: John H. Wrenn Fund
- Museum: [Art Institute of Chicago](https://www.artic.edu/artworks/55507)
- Rights: [Public domain (CC0)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://www.artic.edu/iiif/2/f2ec3004-02ce-ffdb-afcd-00aa290271e0/full/!1920,1080/0/default.jpg
- Who can see it: Teens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

Édouard Manet drew on his painting The Dead Toreador (1864; National Gallery of Art) for this print, transforming its context from a morbid twist on a festive Spanish tauromaquia to the crisis in France’s short-lived Second Empire (1852–70). The tumultuous years 1870–71 marked the humiliating defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian war, the rise and suppression of the revolutionary Paris Commune, and the dawn of the Third Republic. In this print, an unidentified soldier lies behind a Parisian street barricade. A glimpse of a pin-striped civilian pant leg at the lower right hints at the encroachment of violence on everyday life.

Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0