The Barricade
Édouard Manet (printed by Lemercier et Compagnie (French, 19th century))
1871
- Medium
- Lithograph in black, with scraping, on ivory chine laid down on ivory wove paper (chine collé)
- Classification
- Dimensions
- Image: 46.8 × 33.7 cm (18 7/16 × 13 5/16 in.); Primary support: 47 × 33.7 cm (18 9/16 × 13 5/16 in.); Secondary support: 60.4 × 46 cm (23 13/16 × 18 1/8 in.)
- Culture
- France
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Prints and Drawings
- Credit line
- Print and Drawing Club Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its subject is for older viewers (war, death, the Passion, drink or the like). How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
Like Civil War (1871/73), this print is set during the street fighting of the Paris Commune. The troops here mirror the firing squad in Édouard Manet’s The Execution of Maximilian (1868–69), a series of paintings that, due to their political intonations, were not exhibited in Paris under Napoleon III. Here though, instead of Emperor Maximilian of Mexico—a Hapsburg installed by Napoleon III and executed at the hands of a resurgent Mexican army—Manet depicted insurgent Parisian Communards executed by the French army, as it suppressed the uprising.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
