An allegorical representation of France with Liberty as a young woman bound and being dragged from a temple, Libertas, by French soldiers to face a angry mob, two decapitated heads at the base of the stairs. One soldier breaks a staff with a liberty cap at the top. A woman kneels a fire which consumes a spinning wheel and is fed books carried by laborers. A crowd of artists, musicians, carpenters, smiths, weavers and other tradesmen are roughly pushed away from the temple by a soldier. In the background a church which has been turned into a theatre attracts a large crowd to a production of "The massacre at Paris."
Description:
Attributed to John Nixon. See British Museum catalogue, no. 8334., Trimmed within plate mark on top and bottom., One line of text below title: This print is most respectfully dedicated to every true hearted Briton who's a friend to his king and country., Four lines from Churchill's poem, Independence, printed in two columns on each side of title: O thou poor country, weak and overpow'rd, By thine own sons, eat to the bone, devour'd ..., Nine lines of explanatory text below image: Liberty is torn from her temple by a hired band of ruffians ... ., and Sheet trimmed to plate mark on bottom with loss of contemporary ms. annotation.
Publisher:
publisher not identified
Subject (Geographic):
France and France.
Subject (Name):
Paine, Thomas, 1737-1809.
Subject (Topic):
History, Artists, Book burning, Decapitations, Demons, Destruction & pillage, Fools & jesters, Liberty, People associated with manual labor, Trade, Revolutions, and Violence
A gallows separates the design into two compartments. A sign in the center reads "Roberspierre, Marat, Santerre." The crossbar reads "Held up to infamy and posterity." Another sign hangs from the left arm and reads "Paine's Rights of Man." The sign on the right side reads "Classical lectures on the Roman History.", The scene on the left half is labelled at the top "Old England" and depicts naval and commercial prosperity under the bright skies. Three columns labelled Virtue, Honor and Loyalty stand over the words British Constitution; at the base of the drawing are the words "is basis, the happiness of the people.", and The scene on the right half is labelled at the top "New France", and in contrast, all is death and destruction: cities in ruins, bodies hanging from gallows, a bloody guillotine along with other instruments of torture. Flowing from the guillotine into a shaft underground are discarded fragments: religion, pubk. credit, monarchy, laws, trade, honor, loyality, virtue, art ...
Alternative Title:
Things as they are
Description:
Title etched below image., Sheet trimmed within plate mark., On verso: offset impression of Opening of the budget, or, John Bull giving his breeches to save his bacon / James Gillary. Cf. 796.11.17.01+., and Mounted to 45 x 64 cm.
Publisher:
Pubd. Novr. 12th, 1796, by H. Humphrey, New Bond Street
Subject (Geographic):
France
Subject (Name):
Paine, Thomas, 1737-1809.
Subject (Topic):
Democracy, Gallows, Guillotines (Punishment), Liberty cap, Revolutions, French, Ruins, Ships, and History
A ragged sansculotte sits astride a lamp brackets high above a square where a crowd, all wearing bonnets-rouges and all watching the beheading of Louis XVI. He fiddles as he smiles down at the scene. Hanging below him from the same lamp post are two monks and a bishop, their hands bound. Further in the distance are more hung bodies and a cathedral in flames
Alternative Title:
Pinnacle of liberty
Description:
Title etched below image, left., One line of text below title: Religion, justice, loyalty, & all the bugbears of unenlighten'd minds, farewell!, and Mounted to 47 x 30 cm.
Publisher:
Pubd. Feby. 12th, 1793, by H. Humphrey, No. 18 Old Bond Street
Subject (Geographic):
France and France.
Subject (Name):
Louis XVI, King of France, 1754-1793
Subject (Topic):
Death and burial, Sansculottes, History, Clergy, Crowds, Fires, Guillotines (Punishment), Hangings (Executions), Liberty cap, Revolutions, and Scales
