Épouvantée de l'héritage (Appalled by Her Legacy),

1871

Daumier’s lithograph, which imagines the allegorical figure of 1871 mourning the devastation of the siege from the previous year, in­augurates the coming events of the Paris Commune. In contrast, the etching by Lepère pictures a scene from the "Bloody Week," wherein communards were executed by the thousands, effectively signaling an end to the Commune. Striking visual similarities can be noted between Lepère’s etching and Francisco Goya’s Disasters of War series; although created half a century earlier, Goya’s series on the destruction of Spain at the hands of Napoleon’s army was not published until 1863, and it served as both thematic and technical inspiration for contemporary printmakers.