Paris Commune print; 'LES AMAZONES DE LA SEINE'; Lithograph, coloured by hand; Napoleon III reviews the Amazones of the Seine, who are depicted as a group of naked women; Klenck, Paul (possibly); France; 1871.

'LES AMAZONES DE LA SEINE'; Lithograph, coloured by hand; Napoleon III reviews the Amazones of the Seine, who are depicted as a group of naked women.
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.

Although this lithograph depicts Napoleon III reviewing the Amazones of the Seine, in fact this unusual corps was not recruited until after Napoleon's imprisonment and then only unofficially.

According to the placards posted around Paris the Amazones' duties were 'to defend the ramparts and barricades, and afford to the troops in the ranks of which they will be distributed all the domestic and fraternal services compatible with moral order and military discipline'. Although this particular corps was little more than a myth, women did band together to fight, and in May, under the communards, put up some of the strongest opposition to the Government forces.

[Quote taken from: Placard in the De Vinck Collection, No. 23054, in the Bibliothèque Nationale. Translation from Horne, A. The Fall of Paris, the Siege and the Commune 1870-71. London 1965. p. 133]

E.2270-1962