Monsieur Thiers 1877

This is Léon Bonnat's etching of Monsieur Thiers. It’s an incisive portrait of a controversial figure in late 19th-century France. Adolphe Thiers was a historian and statesman whose long career took him from serving as prime minister in the 1830s to becoming the first president of the Third Republic in 1871. Bonnat captures Thiers in a characteristic pose of self-assurance, hand on hip, gazing out at the viewer with a look that might be interpreted as stern or thoughtful. The etching medium allows for a sharp delineation of detail, evident in the wrinkles of Thiers’ face and the texture of his coat. Thiers’s presidency was marked by the suppression of the Paris Commune, a radical socialist government that briefly ruled the city in 1871. Bonnat’s portrait raises questions about the public role of art and the politics of imagery. Was Bonnat’s intention to commemorate Thiers, or perhaps to subtly critique his policies? To better understand this image, we might explore the archives of the French state, the records of artistic institutions, and the writings of contemporary critics, all of which can shed light on the social conditions that shaped artistic production in France at the time.