Description

Hardcover, quarto bound in black cloth and lettered on in gold on spine, in publisher’s dust-jacket. 212 pages. Selected Bibliography, Index. Illustrated with two full page color plates and black and white reproductions throughout. First edition, first printing with full number line. An art history of the French Revolution illumed in oil, as seen by a German born artist living in England. Mirroring Burke’s horror at the events in France, Zoffany’s vision was an outlier in the British School of the period, albeit conformed to the revulsion expressed by the general public. Pressly shows how the artist employed hyperbolic images of violence, Christian symbolism and a medieval conception of “rightful” hierarchies to convey a conservative reactionary graphic image of the Revolution. No previous ownership marks. A clean, square, fresh and unmarked copy. Fine in a fine dust-jacket.