The Last Cartridges, from "L'Univers Illustré"

The Last Cartridges, from "L'Univers Illustré"

Louis Paul Pierre Dumont

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Franco-Prussian War (1870–71) supplied De Neuville with fruitful subjects decades after the conflict. Here he focuses on French troops from the Blue Division of the marines desperately defending a position against overpowering odds and despite, as the dramatic title indicates, running low on ammunition and down to their last cartridges. The artist based his depiction on a real-life episode in the defense of the village of Bazeilles during the Battle of Sedan on September 1, 1870. Dumont's print reproduces De Neuville's painting first shown at the Paris Salon in 1873, and was published in the French weekly newspaper "L'Univers Illustré".

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Last Cartridges, from "L'Univers Illustré"The Last Cartridges, from "L'Univers Illustré"The Last Cartridges, from "L'Univers Illustré"The Last Cartridges, from "L'Univers Illustré"The Last Cartridges, from "L'Univers Illustré"

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.