The Ideal Citoyenne: Women, Class, & The French Revolution in Philibert Louis Debucourt's Fine-Art Prints

Author

Kelsey Martin

Publication Date

7-1-2015

Abstract

Philibert Louis Debucourt's (1755 - 1832) fête galante and domestic genre prints treated women, their social positions, and their experiences of love and relationships as a primary subject, and participated in the rapidly shifting political, economical, and social structure of the years surrounding the 1789 Revolution. These prints aided in the construction of appropriate and inappropriate female behavior of the ideal citoyenne through the representation of eighteenth-century beliefs regarding female sexuality and its class associations. It is in Debucourt's domestic genre scenes that the virtue and serenity of women are clear, validating women's prominence as wives and mothers within the private sphere. Debucourt's fine-art genre prints reflect how late eighteenth-century women were designated power and agency in their domestic roles and sexual relationships while simultaneously limited in this power by the norms and morals enforced by a political culture seeking to eradicate female presence in the public sphere.

Language

English

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Art History

Level of Degree

Masters

Department Name

UNM Department of Art and Art History

First Committee Member (Chair)

Zuromskis, Catherine

Second Committee Member

Ramirez de Arellano, Adriana

Keywords

Eighteenth-century, France, French Revolution, 1789 Revolution, Prints, Printmaking, Reproductive Prints, Fine-Art Prints, Fête Galante Prints, Genre Prints, Women, Citoyenne, Class, Agency

Recommended Citation

Martin, Kelsey. "The Ideal Citoyenne: Women, Class, & The French Revolution in Philibert Louis Debucourt's Fine-Art Prints." (2015). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/arth_etds/30