The Barricade (1871): Artwork and History

The Barricade (1871) is in the Art Institute of Chicago collection. The museum lists its creator attribution as Édouard Manet (French, 1832-1883) printed by Lemercier et Compagnie (French, 19th century).

The work and its context

The Art Institute of Chicago describes the 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.

Object facts

• Title: The Barricade
• Date: 1871
• Artist attribution: Édouard Manet (French, 1832-1883) printed by Lemercier et Compagnie (French, 19th century)
• Place of origin: France
• Medium: Lithograph in black, with scraping, on ivory chine laid down on ivory wove paper (chine collé)
• 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.)
• Type: Print
• Department: Prints and Drawings
• Reference number: 1957.355

Collection credit

Print and Drawing Club Fund

View the original

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The description above is credited to the Art Institute of Chicago and reused under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0; HTML formatting has been converted to plain text. Other catalogue metadata and the public-domain image are provided under CC0 1.0.