The Young Republic

By 1908, when Roll painted the picture, the French Third Republic was nearly 40 years old, proclaimed after the defeat of 1870. The title still calls her young. She walks barefoot across bare rock in a flame-red robe with one breast uncovered and a red cap on her head, arms stretched wide as if to keep her balance on rough ground. There is no crowd and no flag. The canvas was shown at the Salon of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in 1909, and the state bought it there. It went to the Luxembourg, the museum for living artists, and stayed until 1920. Then it was deposited at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris and remained there for 92 years. It returned to the Louvre's collections and was assigned to the Musée d'Orsay in 2012.