Minneapolis Institute of Art

Fashion plate from Magasin des Modes Nouvelles, Quatrième Année, Trente-troisième Cahier, 11 Novembre 1789

Engraver: A.B. Duhamel; after Jean-Florentine Defraine; Author: Jean-Antoine Lebrun-Tossa; Publisher: François Buisson

Date

November 11, 1789

Medium

Hand-colored engraving

Department

European Art

Institution

Minneapolis Institute of Art

Often the smallest details carried the greatest symbolic weight. Even men’s shoe buckles—costly accessories purchased from jewelers—conveyed partisan commentary in form and materials. A royalist pre-revolutionary solid silver buckle with the king’s initial “L” (for Louis) would become a political fl ashpoint the following year, not only for its imagery. Supporters of the Revolution donated thousands of jewelry items, including shoe buckles, to the National Assembly for conversion into money. In an era of economic crisis, buckles made from inexpensive copper, not silver—or better yet, ribbon ties—were deemed patriotic and egalitarian. By November 1789, devotees of the new nation could choose from buckles in the shape of the Bastille prison (top)— complete with ramparts and tiny cannons—or (bottom) ones symbolizing the Third Estate (commoners). According to the description, the latter took its form from a triangular square ruler utilized by masons and architects. France, Europe

The authoritative record is held by Minneapolis Institute of Art. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata.