Research Guides: HIST 228: The French Revolution (HC): Visual Sources

Portraits during the French Revolution

Unknown artist, Portrait of jean-Baptist Milhaud dressed as a representative of the people on mission, an extraordinary envoy of the Legislative Assemby

1793, Musée de la revolution française, Source: Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

Images as Primary Sources

The period of the French Revolution offers many kinds of images for interpretation from David's paintings to popular political prints. Examples of this kind of use of the visual can be found in the resources below.

Imaging the French Revolution: Depictions of the French Revolutionary Crowd
This website, like Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, was developed by Jack Censer and Lynn Hunt. It features a database of images accompanied by discussion and six interpretive essays.
Liberty, Equality, Fraternity
This site, in addition to including many primary texts, also features images of political cartoons, material artifacts, and paintings.
Banque d'images (Bibliothèque nationale)
If you know some French, search for images in this database from the Bibliothèque nationale's collection.
Collections Gateway, Carnavalet Museum
This museum is dedicated to the history of Paris. Browse its rich collections in paintings, sculpture, and decorative arts from this page.
French caricature and the French Revolution, 1789-1799
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The French portrait
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French Revolution Images
This collaboration between Stanford University and the Bibliothèque nationale de France makes over 5 thousand images and artifacts available for study. You can search by artist, subject (using English or French language terms), genre, and place. You can also use the subject headings on individual entries (i.e. Mothers and Children) to find more images on the same theme.
This database is part of the French Revolution Digital Archive which includes French Revolutionary Data and the Archives parlementaires.
Images of the French Revolution
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Journal des Dames et des Modes: Style Revolution: 1797-1804
This website features all the fashion plates from the Journal des dames et des modes dating from 1797-1804, together with their transcribed and translated captions. Explanatory material on the website covers textiles, colors, styles and social history. Sponsored by Columbia University and the Morgan Library.

Books about Political Caricatures

La caricature contre-révolutionnaire
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By Claude Langlois. Published by the press of the C.N.R.S.
La caricature révolutionnaire
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By Antoine de Becque. Published by the press of the C.N.R.S.
Caricatures anglaises, 1789-1815 : face à la Révolution et l'Empire : collections du Musée Carnavalet
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French Caricature and the French Revolution, 1789-1799
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Catalog of an exhibition at UCLA of one hundred and ninety caricatures related to the events of the French Revolution. The caricatures come from the collection of the Bibliotheque Nationale de France. Includes descriptions and analysis of individual caricatures along with some sources for further reading.
Representations of France in English satirical prints, 1740-1832
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Those Scandalous Prints: Caricatures of the Elite in France and Britain, c. 1740-1795
This dissertation by Natalee Eleanor Maureen Garrett (University of St Andrews, 2022) includes many examples of caricatures. See Appendix: Images starting on p. 270.