'L'homme qui était un jour appelé a démolir la Colonne...' Satirical illustration by Léonce Schérer depicting Gustave Courbet, holding a small mallet and hammering at a small pile of stones. Hand-coloured lithograph, France, 1871.

Print depicting Gustave Courbet, holding a small mallet and hammering at a small pile of stones. He is standing in front of a scene in which the Vendome column is demolished in sections. Print from a set of caricatures, broadsheets and illustrations in ten volumes. Each volume is half-bound in red leather, gold tooled and stamped with imperial emblems, title etc.

Provenance unknown.
Plate 21 from a series of 30 entitled SOUVENIRS DE LA COMMUNE.

As early as September 1870, the French painter Gustave Courbet had urged the demolition of the Vendôme Column on the grounds that it was a symbol of Bonapartism and that it offended his artistic sensibilities. On 12 April 1871, the Commune authorized its destruction, which was carried out with great celebrations on 16 May.

After the war Courbet, who was elected to the Commune at the April by-elections, was sentenced to six months' imprisonment and ordered to pay an enormous fine towards the column's reconstruction. To avoid finding the sum he fled to Switzerland.

E.1807-1962