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Revolutionary Calendar

1793
Not on view
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.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • 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
More Artwork
Fortune and Misfortune, or The Broken Pitcher, Louis Philibert Debucourt  French, Mezzotint (black), three etched and engraved plates (colors); second state of three
Louis Philibert Debucourt
1787
Guitar, Jean-Baptiste Voboam  French, Spruce, tortoiseshell, mother-of-pearl, ivory, ebony, French
attributed to Jean-Baptiste Voboam
1697
Seated Giant, Goya (Francisco de Goya y Lucientes)  Spanish, Burnished aquatint, scaper, roulette, lavis (along the top of the landscape and within the landscape)
Goya (Francisco de Goya y Lucientes)
by 1818 (possibly 1814–18)
Anglais en Habit Habille; from Collections de Costumes dessinés, Louis Philibert Debucourt  French, Hand-colored etching and aquatint
Louis Philibert Debucourt
After Carle (Antoine Charles Horace) Vernet
Publisher Charles Bance
1814–24
Ceramic Horn, Glazed pottery, French
French
late 18th or early 19th century

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