print;
satirical print
- Museum number
- 1987,0516.40
- Title
- Object: Les écrevisses à Longchamps (Crayfish at Longchamps)
- Description
-
Satire on censorship and the royalist press, two of the pillars of Ultra opinion; a race at Longchamps with, in the distance, riders on horses moving along the Champs-Élysées towards the (unfinished) Étoile arch, while in the foreground a deviation from the race by two odd carriages each pulled by a crayfish going backwards (facing the opposite direction from their riders): in the centre, one of these carriages bears a group comprising wigged men in uniform ('voltigeurs' identified by 'Le Miroir' as press censors and Academicians) and a woman in outdated dress ('La Quotidienne'), one of whom has a speech bubble with the motto of the Order of the Crayfish "En arrière, marche!!!", while behind them, to the left, a smaller carriage flying the banner with the scissors of censorship and bearing the 'éteignoir' (candle-snuffer)-shaped or 'pain de sucre' (sugar-loaf) figure of the censor Marie-Joseph Pain on a chair (the censor Lachaize); in the foreground to left, two bystanders, one (possibly Delacroix himself) blowing a whistle at the at the two carriages; published in 'Le Miroir', 4th April 1822
Lithograph
- Production date
- 1822
- Dimensions
-
Height: 199 millimetres
-
Width: 307 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- The crayfish refer to the Order of the Crayfish, one of three invented by 'Le Nain Jaune' and 'Le Miroir' to mock political opportunism and Ultra reaction. The other two were the Order of the Candle-extinguisher and the Order of the Weathervane. The conical shape of the éteignoir (candle-snuffer) was a symbol of the Order of the Candle-extinguisher and alluded to intellectual obscurantism, rejection of truth, reason and progress.
For the analysis of this satire, see Nina Maria Athanassoglou-Kallmyer, 'Eugène Delacroix, Prints, Politics and Satire, 1814-1822', New Haven and London, 1991, pp. 70-71.
- Location
- Not on display
- Associated titles
-
Associated Title: Le Miroir
-
Associated Title: La Quotidienne
- Acquisition date
- 1987
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1987,0516.40