The Republic

In February 1848 Paris rose again, King Louis-Philippe fled to England, and France became a republic once more. On 14 March the new government opened a competition for a painted image of the new regime, and hundreds of artists sent in sketches. Daumier, a committed republican, sent this one. His figure is a massive seated woman gripping the tricolour flag. Infants cling to her and feed at her breasts, and at her feet a boy sits reading, which explains the longer title, The Republic Nourishes and Instructs Her Children. The jury placed it 11th and chose it to be carried out on a large scale, yet Daumier never painted the big version. The sketch stayed with his widow until 1900, and in 1906 the collector Étienne Moreau-Nélaton gave it to the French state.