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Allegorie dèdiè au tiers etat LCCN2004676887-restored
Miscellaneous Items in High Demand, PPOC, Library of Congress"
1789
- Classification
- Photograph
- Museum
- Wikimedia Commons
- Credit line
- Library of Congress Catalog: https://lccn.loc.gov/2004676887 Image download: https://cdn.loc.gov/service/pnp/ppmsca/05800/05894v.jpg Original url: https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2004676887/
- Rights
- Public domain, 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
About this work
Engraving from the time of the French Revolution (specifically from the period of the National Constituent Assembly, around 1789) entitled "Allegory Dedicated to the Third Estate." It represents a political satire on the social structure of the Ancien Régime in France and the brutal inequality of the three-estate system.
The Third Estate (Tiers État): In the center, a peasant or worker represents the vast majority of the population (the common people). He appears hunched over, barefoot on one foot, and bearing the entire weight of the structure on his shoulders. At his feet are agricultural tools such as a hoe, a scythe, and a barrel, symbolizing that the economy and sustenance of the nation depended exclusively on his labor.
The Clergy and the Nobility: On the left, a representative of the Church in ecclesiastical vestments, and on the right, a nobleman in court dress, plumed hat, and sword. Instead of relieving the burden of the Third Estate, they lightly support the frame of the heart, but in reality, the entire physical and fiscal weight rests on the man in the center.
The large central heart: Within the heart is a devotional scene where a figure (representing France)…
