ANONYMOUS, French
The Triumph of the French Republic
under the Auspices of Liberty
pen and black ink, watercolor, gouache,
graphite and gold ink, about 1793-1794
Ackland Fund, 68.12.1

With the elimination of the Monarchy and the church as transcendent emblems, revolutionary France called upon its artists to develop a set of symbols to depict the new political and social ideals of the Republic.  Artists responded by calling on images of antiquity like the god-hero Hercules, who stands in the foreground wearing a lion-skin and wielding a club. Allegorical images visualized such civic virtues as Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity.  Likewise, personifications of evils such as Injustice, Monarchy, Clericalism, Poverty, and Privilege were created, to be broken and vanquished by the host of allegorical virtues. 

Representing the strength of the French people, Hercules threatens Monarchy, who sprawls on the ground next to a broken crown.  Seated on a triumphal chariot, the Republic of France holds the bundled fasces of Unity, a bundle of rods with a projecting axe blade.  Such bundles were carried before ancient Roman magistrates as an emblem of authority.

Lindsay Twa