The Two Are But One (Les deux ne font qu'un)

Anonymous, French, 18th century

late 18th century · Hand-colored etching · Drawings and Prints

During the first years of the French REvolution, King Louis XVI was rarely ridiculed in prints. It was only after the night of June 20, 1791 - when he and his family attempted to flee Paris for a Royalist stronghold, where he hoped to begin a counterrevolution - that popular opinion turned more decidedly against him. Louis and Queen Marie-Antoinette then became frequent targets of French caricaturists, who often depicted them in a sort of reverse anthropomorphism, as animals with human heads. Here, the royal couple is portrayed as a two-headed creature that pulls in opposite directions. The king is given the body of a pig and the horns of a cuckold, a reference to his wife's many rumored affairs; the queen, with the body of a hyena, sports a fancy headdress of serpents and ostrich feathers, the latter a pun on her Austrian heritage (autruche and Autriche)

Artist

Anonymous, French, 18th century

Date

late 18th century

Medium

Hand-colored etching

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1962