Joseph-Agricol Viala, after Sablet

Joseph-Agricol Viala, after Sablet by Pierre Michel Alix|François Jean Sablet|Joseph Agricol Viala

Medium

Color aquatint

Dimensions

Sheet: 10 in. × 7 3/8 in. (25.4 × 18.8 cm)

Classification

Prints

Department

Drawings and Prints

Museum

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY

Credit

Gertrude and Thomas Jefferson Mumford Collection, Gift of Dorothy Quick Mayer, 1942

Accession Number

42.119.423

Tags

MenPortraitsAxes

Art Historical Context

This evocative color aquatint portrait, *Joseph-Agricol Viala, Sablet*, captures the youthful revolutionary hero Joseph Agricol Viala 1795, during the turbulent aftermath of the French Revolution. by engravers Pierre-Michel Alix and François Sablet after an original by Sablet, it Viala—a boy martyr slain in 1793 while defending the Republic—gripping axes, symbols of radical fervor and resistance against royalist forces. Printed on a modest sheet of 10 × 7⅜ inches, the work served as patriotic propaganda, immortalizing Viala's sacrifice to inspire the revolutionary cause. The medium of color a...

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