Die Erschießung Kaiser Maximilians

On the 19th of June 1867 Maximilian, emperor of Mexico, faced a firing squad on a hill outside Queretaro. He was a Habsburg archduke whom Napoleon III had installed on a Mexican throne and then abandoned, withdrawing French troops and leaving him to the republican forces of Benito Juarez. When the news reached Paris, Manet, who blamed his own emperor for the whole disaster, began painting it, and this is the last of several versions he made. Look closely at the firing squad. Manet dressed these Mexican soldiers in uniforms almost identical to French ones, and gave the sergeant loading for the final shot a face resembling Napoleon III's. The French censors understood the point, and the picture could not be shown publicly in France in Manet's lifetime.