Portret van Adam-Philippe de Custine 1824

This is Jean-Baptiste Mauzaisse's lithographic portrait of Adam-Philippe de Custine. Custine was a French general, and his stern and unflinching gaze is meant to evoke a sense of military might. Made in France, this image can be situated in the period after the French Revolution, when lithography emerged as an exciting medium for mass communication. It was much cheaper than engraving and therefore useful to spread particular ideas across the country. The portrait is not simply a representation of Custine, but also an effort to immortalize his ideas. As historians, it’s important to think about the image’s production and distribution. Prints like this one ended up in a range of institutional and domestic settings, and so we might ask, how did the proliferation of his image shape perceptions of Custine at this time? Researching the print’s production history and reception can tell us a lot about the artwork’s impact on contemporary French society.