Caricature Showing Louis XVI as a Ram
18th century
Medium
Etching
Dimensions
sheet: 4 1/2 x 3 7/8 in. (11.5 x 9.8 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1962
Accession Number
62.520.13
Tags
Art Historical Context
This witty 18th-century etching, created anonymously by a French artist, depicts King Louis XVI transformed into a ram—a clever caricature symbolizing stubbornness or folly amid growing unrest. Produced during the turbulent years leading to the French Revolution (1789–1799), it captures the era's sharp political satire, where prints mocked the monarchy's perceived weaknesses. Louis XVI, whose indecisiveness contributed to revolutionary fervor, became a prime target for such humorous jabs, reflecting public frustration with royal excess and ineffective leadership. Etching, an intaglio printmak...
About the Artist
Anonymous, French, 18th century · 1700–1800
The artist known as Anonymous, French, 18th century, represents a collective of unidentified talents active roughly between 1700 and 1800, a period of profound artistic evolution in France from the opulent Rococo to the austere dawn of Neoclassicism and Revolutionary fervor. Little is documented about their personal training or mentors, as their anonymity obscures individual biographies, though th...