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The Barricade (recto); The Execution of Maximilian (verso)
Edouard Manet French
Not on view
This sheet presents another response by Manet to the French government’s brutal suppression of the Paris Commune in 1871. Whether he based this execution scene on his own observation or written reports, he layered the composition with self-citation. The back of the sheet shows a tracing in reverse from his censored print, The Execution of Maximilian, on view nearby. In the drawing on the front, worked up with ink and watercolor, he converted that composition to a scene of the Parisian conflict: the Mexican firing squad became French soldiers, while Maximilian and his generals became anonymous victims.
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