Caricatures from the Franco-Prussian War and the Paris Commune (1870-71)
Lead Research Organisation:
Royal Holloway University of London
Department Name: History
Abstract
1870-1 was a pivotal year in European history. In France, the so-called 'terrible year' (année terrible) involved not only a momentous military defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, which brought the loss of Alsace-Moselle to the newly-unified German Empire, but also the insurrection and bloody suppression of the Paris Commune in spring 1871. In Italy, the withdrawal of French troops to fight the German armies allowed nationalists to capture Rome for Italy in September 1870, ending the Pope's millennium-long role as a temporal ruler.
The British Library's collection of over 5,000 caricatures and images produced in response to the Franco-Prussian war and the Paris Commune provides a unique opportunity to explore a pivotal year in modern European history through a transnational lens. Most of these images are French and produced in Paris but there are also significant numbers of German, war-themed illustrations and caricatures. Frederick Justen, the owner of booksellers Dulau and Co, who was of German origin and possibly of Huguenot descent, donated the main part of this collection to the British Museum Library in 1889. These collections permit us to pose new and important questions. To what extent did artists and publicists engage with the Franco-Prussian War, Paris Commune, or even the year as a whole, as 'European' events? What can comparing French and German images and responses reveal about the way publics from warring nations engaged with the entangled histories of War and Commune? How can the histories of collecting and visual culture enrich our understanding of the emerging European public sphere?
Students will be invited to propose a project that uses one or more of the following themes to bring this rich collection into a wider European context:
Prints as sources for a Franco-German history of 1870-1. It is well-established that the French and German nations were often defined in contrast to one another in the period after 1871. How important was popular printed imagery to the development of conflicting national identities? This collection also permits the exploration of neglected themes. For example, the German images contain a wealth of often racially stereotyped representations of colonial troops in the French Army, a subject that has been explored more for 1914-18 than for this period.
The international public for printed satire. To what extent can we use traces and provenances of the images in the BL's collection, alongside archival sources and other similar collections (e.g. Cambridge, V&A, and Heidelberg), to reconstruct the history of exchange and dissemination of visual news in the 1870s-'80s? How far can we use Justen's collection and other collections of material related to the Franco-Prussian War and the Commune to understand the market for European news in late nineteenth-century London?
Collection history. We know relatively little about Frederick Justen, the collector of the BL's formidable caricature collection, but he was a thoroughly transnational figure. How far might Justen's collecting practice itself be understood as a form of history? To what extent did Justen pursue materials to understand how different European national artists and publics interpreted and satirised the tumult of 1870-1? How did Justen share the collections he had formed, for example through the 'Literary Gossip' column in The Athenaeum?
The British Library's collection of over 5,000 caricatures and images produced in response to the Franco-Prussian war and the Paris Commune provides a unique opportunity to explore a pivotal year in modern European history through a transnational lens. Most of these images are French and produced in Paris but there are also significant numbers of German, war-themed illustrations and caricatures. Frederick Justen, the owner of booksellers Dulau and Co, who was of German origin and possibly of Huguenot descent, donated the main part of this collection to the British Museum Library in 1889. These collections permit us to pose new and important questions. To what extent did artists and publicists engage with the Franco-Prussian War, Paris Commune, or even the year as a whole, as 'European' events? What can comparing French and German images and responses reveal about the way publics from warring nations engaged with the entangled histories of War and Commune? How can the histories of collecting and visual culture enrich our understanding of the emerging European public sphere?
Students will be invited to propose a project that uses one or more of the following themes to bring this rich collection into a wider European context:
Prints as sources for a Franco-German history of 1870-1. It is well-established that the French and German nations were often defined in contrast to one another in the period after 1871. How important was popular printed imagery to the development of conflicting national identities? This collection also permits the exploration of neglected themes. For example, the German images contain a wealth of often racially stereotyped representations of colonial troops in the French Army, a subject that has been explored more for 1914-18 than for this period.
The international public for printed satire. To what extent can we use traces and provenances of the images in the BL's collection, alongside archival sources and other similar collections (e.g. Cambridge, V&A, and Heidelberg), to reconstruct the history of exchange and dissemination of visual news in the 1870s-'80s? How far can we use Justen's collection and other collections of material related to the Franco-Prussian War and the Commune to understand the market for European news in late nineteenth-century London?
Collection history. We know relatively little about Frederick Justen, the collector of the BL's formidable caricature collection, but he was a thoroughly transnational figure. How far might Justen's collecting practice itself be understood as a form of history? To what extent did Justen pursue materials to understand how different European national artists and publics interpreted and satirised the tumult of 1870-1? How did Justen share the collections he had formed, for example through the 'Literary Gossip' column in The Athenaeum?
People |
ORCID iD |
| Anthony Chapman-Joy (Student) |