The Second Republic's Contest for the Figure of the Republic

* I am very grateful to the following individuals who contributed to the accomplishment of this project: Mme. Labat of the Archives Nationales; Julius Kaplan for his research assistance as a Fulbright scholar in Paris; Allan Klotz for his splendid photographic talents; and especially my brother, Professor Jerome Boime of Brandeis University, who graciously consented to read the manuscript and offered many valuable insights and suggestions.

Abstract

Aside from the free Salon of 1848, the single most dramatic artistic event of the short-lived Second Republic was the general and open competition for a symbol appropriate to the new regime.¹ Historically, the contest marks a watershed in the development of French art not only for the inclusive range of its participants – composed of academicians, “juste milieu” representatives, realists and Barbizon artists – but also because it vividly reflected the pictorial problems of artists living in a period of transition. Yet, while references are often made to this contest by art historians, their accounts are fragmentary and generally confused.² This is not entirely the authors’ fault; the circumstances leading to the bizarre consummation of the contest presented a bewildering spectacle even to the participating artists themselves.³