Hu
Back to results

The Barricade (recto); The Execution of Maximilian (verso) Édouard Manet

Artist

Édouard Manet Paris, 1832 – Paris, 1883

Culture French
Date late 1860s
Object type drawing
Medium, technique recto: silverpoint, black ink, watercolour, gouache on paper; verso: black chalk
Dimensions

462 × 325 mm

Inventory number 1935-2734
Collection Prints and Drawings
On view This artwork is not on display

On this watercolour from 1871, and on the related lithograph, Manet commemorated a tragic event of the Paris Commune: the execution of the communards on the street. For this composition he made use of the landscape-format lithograph he made three years earlier depicting the execution of Emperor Maximilian in Mexico. When he decided that this drawing should be portrait-format, he added a strip to the top of the original sheet. With this work Manet expressed scathing political criticism.

This record is subject to revision due to ongoing research.

Recommended exhibitions