L'exécution de Maximilien (The Execution of the Emperor Maximilian)
Édouard Manet, French, 1832 - 1883
1868
Crayon lithograph with scraping, printed on chine collé on wove paper
III/III
Image: 13 3/16 × 17 1/16 in. (33.5 × 43.4 cm)
Sheet: 18 11/16 × 24 7/8 in. (47.5 × 63.2 cm)
Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth: Purchased through gifts from the Lathrop Fellows
2010.59
Printer
Lemercier et Cie., Paris
Geography
Place Made: France, Europe
Period
19th century
Object Name
Research Area
Not on view
Inscriptions
In image, bottom left, signed: Manet; below image, center: Imp. Lemercier et Cie. [ie superscript] Paris.
Label
Clouds of smoke obscure three condemned men’s faces. Facing them, soldiers form a line, wearing crisp uniforms, models of military discipline. One soldier turns to the viewer as he reloads his rifle, preparing the final shot. This scene represents the final moments of Emperor Maximilian. Designated the ruler of Mexico by the French, he failed to create a new European colonial empire. Instead, the Mexican army, under the command of Benito Juárez, put Maximilian and two of his generals to death by firing squad, echoing the executions the emperor had carried out during his brief reign. Sympathetic to the Mexican fight to retake their country, Manet made his images in the immediate aftermath of the events but was not able to display them in France, which had continued to support Maximilian. Made after Manet’s own paintings of the same image, this print captures the final moments of Emperor Maximilian.
From the 2023 exhibition Recording War: Images of Violence 1500 – 1900, curated by Elizabeth Rice Mattison, Andrew W. Mellon Associate Curator of Academic Programming
Course History
ARTH 7, Paris in the Nineteenth Century, Kristin O'Rourke, Spring 2013
ANTH 12.3, WGST 42.5, The Ethnography of Violence, Chelsey Kivland, Fall 2013
ARTH 49, European Art in the Age of Revolution (1750-1850), Katie Hornstein, Fall 2013
ARTH 7, Paris in the 19th Century, Kristin O'Rourke, Winter 2014
ARTH 7.2, Paris in the Nineteenth Century, Kristin O'Rourke, Winter 2015
ARTH 41.04, European Art 1850-1900, Allan Doyle, Spring 2019
ARTH 41.04, European Art 1850-1900, Allan Doyle, Spring 2019
ARTH 7.02, Paris in the 19th Century, Kristin O'Rourke, Spring 2022
Spanish 31.01, Introduction to Hispanic Literature II, Sebastian Diaz, Winter 2023
Art History 7.02, Paris in the 19th Century, Kristin O'Rourke, Spring 2023
Anthropology 3.01, Introduction to Anthropology, Charis Ford Morrison Boke 1, Summer 2023
Studio Art 27.01/28.01/74.01, Printmaking I/II/III, Josh Dannin, Summer 2024
Exhibition History
Recording War: Images of Violence, 1500-1900, Ivan Albright Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, August 23-December 9, 2023.
Publication History
John R. Stomberg, The Hood Now: Art and Inquiry at Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, 2019, p. 123, ill. plate no. 54.
Provenance
Susan Schulman Printseller, New York, New York; sold to present collection, 2010.
Catalogue Raisonne
Beraldi (1889):56; Guerin (1944): 73; Fisher (1985): 49; Harris (1970): 54
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