Images of the French Revolution
The Images are composed of high-resolution digital images of approximately 12,000 individual visual items, primarily prints, but also illustrations, medals, coins, and other objects, which display aspects of the Revolution. These materials were selected from across the BnF’s departments, and include thousands of images for the important collections entitled Hennin and De Vinck. Detailed metadata exists for the images, so that researchers can search by artist, subject, genre, and place.
The FRDA provides access to the most complete searchable digital archive of French Revolution images available. Images de la Révolution française is a benchmark image-base undertaken by the Bibliothèque nationale de France on the occasion of the Revolution’s bicentennial in 1989. It aimed to “allow the reader to explore the relationships, articulations and confrontations between the ideas of the Revolution and their metaphorical embodiment, the constant cross-fertilization of ideology and make-believe…” For this project the BnF created over 38,000 separate views of over 14, 000 individual images, showing closeups and dividing documents with discrete iconographic materials into appropriate sections. The Images, which were originally offered in analog format on laserdisc, had become extremely difficult to access due to rapid technological change. Within the framework of its digitization programs, the BnF rescanned at high resolution almost half of the images on the laserdisc from the original materials. New JPEG files were created from the original videodisc for the remaining images in the corpus. Now all of these images are available online as part of the FRDA.
Over 14,000 image-based items, primarily prints from the Departement des Estampes et de la Photographie, but also illustrations, medals, coins, and other objects, were selected for inclusion from across the BnF’s departments. Many originally entered the BnF on legal deposit, but others come from important collections acquired in the 19th and early 20th century. Two of these collections deserve special attention. The collection of Michel Hennin is notable not only for its size, but because it includes many prints omitted from the legal deposit that Hennin amassed during his time in Italy working for the Viceroy, Prince Eugène de Beauharnais. The print collection of Carl de Vinck, a Belgian diplomat, grew out of his father’s infatuation in Marie-Antoinette and expanded to focus more generally on visual representations of France during the century from Marie-Antoinette’s marriage to Louis XVI in 1770 until the Paris Commune of 1870.
The images selected for the digital archive concentrate solely on the period from 1787 through 1799, from the years immediately preceding the outbreak of the Revolution through the emergence of Napoleon. Only visual materials directly tied to the Revolution itself are included. While the texts of the AP are primarily of interest to serious students and scholars of the Revolution, these images expand the FRDA’s audience to the general public. The creators of the initial incarnation of the Images anticipated that scholars would use them for their research and teaching purposes, and that the public at large would find in them an important way of learning more about this foundational moment for the French nation.
- The events of the Revolution
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- Religion
- Everyday politics
- Political rivalries and social conflict
- Beginnings
- The great "journées"
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- »The Tuileries palace invaded (20 June 1792)
- The fall of the Bastille
- The King moves to Paris (5-6 October 1789)
- »The Champ-de-Mars massacre (17 July 1791
- The fall of the monarchy
- »The September massacres (2-7 September 1792)
- »The fall of the Girondins (30 May and 2 June 1793)
- »The "journées" of the Directory
- The King and the Royal Family
- Legislative debates
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- »The new administrative divisions of France and Paris (1790)
- »The new calendar (5 October 1793)
- »The municipal taxes: abolishing the town customs barriers (May 1791)
- »The Royal veto (September 1789)
- »Electoral qualifications: the "marc d'argent" franchise (October 1789)
- »The abolition of slavery (4 February 1794)
- Europe
- France at war
- The abolition of privileges
- Constitutional acts
- The great journées
- The great jounées
- Themes in art and culture
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- Heroes
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- Historical models
- The apotheosis of the "philosophes": Voltaire and Rousseau
- Some examples of courage and virtue
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- »Military bravery and civic-mindedness: "illustrious unknowns"
- »Desilles, officer of the King's Regiment killed while attempting to avoid bloodshed (Nancy, 31 August 1790)
- »Joseph Bara, aged thirteen, slain by the Vendéens (1793)
- »Agricol Viala, aged eleven, dies in the repression of the rising in the Midi (July 1793)
- »General Marceau, mortally wounded at the battle of Altenkirchen (21 September 1796)
- »Collective portraits
- Revolutionary martyrs
- Games and leisure
- Allegories and symbols
- Festivals and celebrations
- Decorative arts
- Architecture
- Archives and documents
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- Revolutionary Paris
- Portraits
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- Revolutionary figures
- Foreign monarchs
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- »George III, King of Great Britain and Ireland (1738-1820)
- »Stanislaus Augustus II, King of Poland (1732-1798)
- »Joseph II, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire (1747-1790)
- »Gustav III, King of Sweden (1746 - 1792)
- »Victor Amadeus III, King of Sardinia (1726-1796)
- »Pius VI, Pope (1717-1799)
- »Paul I, Emperor of Russia (1754-1801)
- »Catherine II, Empress of Russia (1729-1796)
- »Frederick William II, King of Prussia (1744-1797)
- »Ferdinand I Bourbon, King of the two Sicilies (1751-1825)
- »Leopold II, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire (1747-1792)
- »Charles IV, King of Spain (1748-1819)
- »Francis II, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire (1768-1835)
- »Selim III, Sultan of Turkey (1761-1808)
- »Ferdinand III, Grand Duke of Tuscany (1769-1824)
- »Gustav IV, King of Sweden (1778-1837)
- »John VI, King of Portugal (1767-1826)
- »Frederick William III, King of Prussia (1770-1840)
- »Frederick I, King of Württemberg (1754-1816)
- »Maximilian I, King of Bavaria (1756-1825)
- The Royal Family
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- »Louis XVI (1754-1793)
- »The Count of Provence, brother of Louis XVI (1755-1824)
- »Marie-Antoinette (1755-1793)
- »The Count of Artois, brother of Louis XVI (1757-1836)
- »The Countess of Artois (1756-1805)
- »The Countess of Provence (1753-1810)
- »Madame Royale, daughter of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette (1778-1851)
- »Elisabeth de France, sister of the King (1764-1794)
- »The Dauphin (1785-1795)
- Costume
- Coins
- Maps and plans
- Medals
- Adminsitrative documents
- Politics in the boudoir