The Last Moments of Maximilian
After Jean Paul Laurens French
Publisher Goupil & Co. French
Printer Gebbie & Husson Co British
Not on view
This print reproduces a painting exhibited by Jean-Paul Laurens, an acclaimed history painter, at the Salon of 1882. The subject, the day of Emperor Maximilian’s execution in Mexico in 1867, was treated at the time by Edouard Manet in a series of paintings and a print (21.48). Fifteen years later, rather than depicting the violent scene of the execution itself, Laurens shows the stoicism of Maximilian in the face of his impending death, which contrasts with the distress of the priest who has come to take his last confession and the servant who kneels at his feet. His more indirect critique of the Imperial French regime employs a humanist and anecdotal approach to elicit sympathy for Maximilian as a victim.
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