Revolutionary Calendar
Following the French Revolution, a Republican calendar was adopted and in use from 1793 to 1805. The religious and royalist references of the Gregorian calendar were purged and replaced with names drawn from nature. With a structure based on the decimal system, the new calendar began each year in the autumn.
Debucourt presents the calendar with the months and days of Year II (1793–94) inscribed in a box. The allegorical figure of Philosophy sits atop a stone outcropping amid various symbols of learning and the newly founded French Republic. Based on his own design, it is a tour de force of the aquatint technique, employing a full range of painterly tones, from white and pale grays through the inkiest blacks.
Debucourt presents the calendar with the months and days of Year II (1793–94) inscribed in a box. The allegorical figure of Philosophy sits atop a stone outcropping amid various symbols of learning and the newly founded French Republic. Based on his own design, it is a tour de force of the aquatint technique, employing a full range of painterly tones, from white and pale grays through the inkiest blacks.
Artwork Details
- Title: Revolutionary Calendar
- Artist: Louis Philibert Debucourt (French, Paris 1755–1832 Paris)
- Date: 1793
- Medium: Etching and aquatint
- Dimensions: Sheet: 19 3/16 × 16 3/8 in. (48.8 × 41.6 cm)
Plate: 17 1/4 × 14 15/16 in. (43.8 × 38 cm)
Image: 16 3/4 × 14 1/4 in. (42.6 × 36.2 cm) - Classification: Prints
- Credit Line: Funds from various donors, 2013
- Object Number: 2013.252
- Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints
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