Women of Montmartre, from "The Graphic," vol. 3

Women of Montmartre, from "The Graphic," vol. 3

Arthur Boyd Houghton

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Women participated in the Paris Commune in great numbers, especially in the working-class neighborhood of Montmartre. Houghton’s illustration, which appeared in "The Graphic" in June and "Harper’s Weekly" in July of 1871, shows a group of women marching under a flag that reads "The Commune or Death." The accompanying article states: "In the present revolution the women have shown themselves almost worthy of their sisters of 1792–93." It is more generally critical of the "Amazons of the Commune," however, describing them as "coarse, brawny, unwomanly, and degraded; picturesque certainly, but by no means pleasing."

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Women of Montmartre, from "The Graphic," vol. 3Women of Montmartre, from "The Graphic," vol. 3Women of Montmartre, from "The Graphic," vol. 3Women of Montmartre, from "The Graphic," vol. 3Women of Montmartre, from "The Graphic," vol. 3

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.