Goddess and woman of the people
Delacroix gives Liberty two natures in one body: an allegory, and a young woman of the people. Barefoot and bare-breasted, she holds the tricolour high.
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Liberty Leading the People
Eugène Delacroix · 1830
painting · Romanticism260 × 325 cm
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Delacroix painted the July Revolution of 1830 within months of the uprising. The government bought the canvas after its Salon debut, then withdrew it from public view. It entered the Louvre in 1874: an image of revolution whose own visibility was politically charged.
Details
Liberty combines an allegorical figure with a woman of the people, barefoot and bare-breasted beneath the raised tricolour. Around her, people from different classes advance over the fallen. Vigorous brushwork carries the movement towards you.
In its time
1830
Books from this period
Where it hangs
Musée du Louvre
In context
The fallen of July
July 1830: a revolution topples King Charles X. Liberty rises over the bodies of its fallen to lead the living on.
On banknotes and stamps
Liberty's image outlived the barricades: reproduced on French banknotes and postage stamps, and referenced again and again in art and advertising.
The story
July 1830. A revolution overthrows King Charles X, and Louis-Philippe takes the throne.
Within a few months, Delacroix has it on canvas.
It makes its debut at the Salon of 1831 and is bought to hang in the Luxembourg Palace.
Then the new king's government hides it. Within a few years it is off public view, and later it is handed back to the painter.
In 1874 it finally enters the Louvre.
Romanticism
Feeling first. The Romantics put emotion ahead of classical restraint, and Delacroix let vigorous brushwork and colour carry the charge.
In the books
Dickens set his novel in the French Revolution. This canvas shows a later one: the July Revolution of 1830.
Hugo's novel came about thirty years after this canvas, and the boy with the pistols is often linked to its Gavroche.