Minerva, 1796
The Fall of Robespierre and St. Just, probably 1790s
The Oath of the Tennis-Court, Versailles, 19 June 1789; 1792
The Triumph of the French Republic Under the Auspices of Liberty, ca. 1793-1794
Voltaire
Order and Upheaval: From the Rational to the Fictional in French Revolutionary Images

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Minerva

Minerva, 1796

The Fall of Robespierre and St. Just
(Equality Triumphant
or the Triumvirate Punished), probably 1790s

The Oath of the Tennis-Court,
Versailles, 19 June 1789, 1792

The Triumph of the French Republic
under the Auspices of Liberty, ca 1793-1794

Voltaire, dated 1778,
probably between 1779 and 1793

 

 

JEAN-GUILLAUME MOITTE, French, 1746-1810
Minerva
terra cotta, 1796
Ackland Fund, 81.50.1

The seated warrior-goddess looks alertly to the side, ready to spring to action with the weapon that she once held in her now missing right hand.  Minerva is identified by her helmet and by the head of Medusa worn on her tunic. 

 The Olympian goddess Minerva is a perfect emblem for late eighteenth-century revolutionary France.  Indeed, in the past this figure has been identified as the French Republic.  As a warrior-goddess, Minerva is often associated with Victory, but she fights only for just causes.  She is also the goddess of prudence and wisdom.  Certainly there is no finer match for the Age of Reason and Revolution than Minerva.

Lindsay Twa

 
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