Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College

The Human Comedy: Chronicles of 19th-Century France

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Dernier conseil des ex ministres

Dernier conseil des ex ministres

Honoré Daumier (French, 1808–1879) Dernier conseil des ex ministres (Last Cabinet Meeting of the Ex-Ministers), 1848 Lithograph Gift of Eugene L. Garbaty, 1954.122

When Louis-Philippe abdicated the throne and fled to Eng-land in 1848, Daumier expressed his relief in this allegorical representation of the Republic, with her signature Phrygian cap, chasing out the members of the King’s cabinet and es-tablishing herself as legitimate and enlightened ruler of France. The day after the Republic was proclaimed, Philipon made a similarly dramatic statement when he wrote, “Paris woke up in the morning under a Monarchy and went to sleep at night as a Republic.”

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