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The Two Are But One (Les deux ne font qu'un)

late 18th century
Not on view
During the first years of the French Revolution, King Louis XVI was rarely ridiculed in prints. It was only after the night of June 20, 1791 - when he and his family attempted to flee Paris for a Royalist stronghold, where he hoped to begin a counterrevolution - that popular opinion turned more decidedly against him. Louis and Queen Marie-Antoinette then became frequent targets of French caricaturists, who often depicted them in a sort of reverse anthropomorphism, as animals with human heads. Here, the royal couple is portrayed as a two-headed creature that pulls in opposite directions. The king is given the body of a pig and the horns of a cuckold, a reference to his wife's many rumored affairs; the queen, with the body of a hyena, sports a fancy headdress of serpents and ostrich feathers, the latter a pun on her Austrian heritage (autruche and Autriche)

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: The Two Are But One (Les deux ne font qu'un)
  • Artist: Anonymous, French, 18th century
  • Date: late 18th century
  • Medium: Hand-colored etching
  • Dimensions: sheet: 5 7/8 x 8 3/8 in. (15 x 21.3 cm)
  • Classification: Prints
  • Credit Line: The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1962
  • Object Number: 62.520.106
  • Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints

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Landscape With a Farmyard, Thatched-Roofed Buildings and a Peasant Woman, Anonymous, French, 18th century French, Red chalk
Landscape With a Farmyard, Thatched-Roofed Buildings and a Peasant Woman
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William Pitt: "Il Fau Déclarer la Guerre a la France"
Anonymous, French, 18th century
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Le Juif Errant
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Head of a Child, from Livre de Têtes Gravées d'apres F. Boucher et Autres (Book of Heads Engraved after F. Boucher and Others), Anonymous, French, 18th century French, Etching and engraving
Head of a Child, from Livre de Têtes Gravées d'apres F. Boucher et Autres (Book of Heads Engraved after F. Boucher and Others)
Multiple artists/makers
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