Fan Design with Republican Assignats (French Revolutionary Money)
Anonymous, French, 18th century French
Not on view
Printed in the mid-1790s, the illusionist collage of crisp French Republican monetary notes, or assignats, adorning this fan design would have signaled the user's anti-royalist sympathies. Significantly, the one note with a bent corner, and dated 1791, contains a portrait medallion of the dethroned and imprisoned Louis XVI. The whole design is surrounded by stylishly up-to-date neoclassical ornament, including a panel of Greek key design, another of coins and two terms bearing the head of Mercury, the guardian of finance.
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