Liberty Leading the People is a large oil painting by the French Romantic artist Eugène Delacroix, completed in 1830 to commemorate the July Revolution, which overthrew King Charles X. It shows the allegorical figure of Liberty, a bare-breasted woman wearing a Phrygian cap and holding the tricolor flag, striding over fallen bodies with a bayonetted musket as a crowd of Parisians follows her. The people around her include a bourgeois in a top hat, a worker and a boy with pistols, which together suggest the broad base of the uprising. The French state bought the painting, but it was kept out of public view for years because its message was considered politically sensitive. It now hangs in the Louvre and has become one of the best-known images of revolution and freedom.
Before and after
- 1830Founding of United States Naval Observatory
- 1830Founding of Astana
- 1830Publication of The Brabançonne
- 1830London Conference
- 1830Liberty Leading the People
- 1830Publication of Book of Mormon
- c. 1830sNullification Crisis
- from 1830 to 1838Mir Muhammed Rebellion
- from 1830 to 1900Rise of literary realism
More in Art, literature & culture
- 1863Origins of Baháʼí Faith
- 17 November 1869Construction of Suez Canal
- 1871The Internationale
- from 1886 to 1905Rise of Post-impressionism
- 31 March 1889Construction of Eiffel Tower
- from 6 April 1896 to 15 April 18961896 Summer Olympics
The era
This moment belongs to the Industrial era (1760 CE to 1914 CE), steam, factories and revolutions. You can also browse everything in the 19th century.