Vier karikaturen van een man, vrouw met kinderen en een geit, vrouw met kinderen bij een brand en een man met fez en geweer

Firmin Gillot made this caricature of a man, a woman with children and a goat, a woman with children by a fire, and a man with a fez and a rifle using lithography. The image is highly suggestive of France’s colonialist ambitions during the mid-19th century. This was a time when French artists were expected to play a part in promoting colonialist ideologies, and to participate in France’s colonial expansion. The image does this by depicting the racialized other in comparison to the caricatures of men in suits that appear in the upper section of the lithograph. This image seems like an interesting case study into the way France's colonial project depended on constructing an image of the exotic other, as well as the way in which the institutions of art helped spread those images among the French public. For more information, I encourage you to consult contemporary publications and exhibition records.