Portret van Louis-Antoine-François de Marchangy c. 1821

This portrait of Louis-Antoine-François de Marchangy was made by Charles Aimé Forestier, though the exact date is unknown. What we can see is a cultural elite of post-revolutionary France, keen to stabilize society and re-establish itself after a period of extreme change. Lithography, like that used here, exploded in popularity in the early 19th century precisely because it offered a relatively cheap means of pictorial reproduction, allowing images to circulate far more widely than ever before. Note the way the subject's name is prominently displayed beneath the image. This is a commercial product made to be consumed by a mass audience. What is being sold is a representation of individual success within a meritocratic social order. Careful study of the printmaking trade, alongside archival research into the sitter and his milieu, will allow us to understand this work more fully in its social and institutional context. The art is contingent on the framework that produced and supported it.