1875, James Tissot, The Holiday (Still on Top) -- Auckland Art Gallery
From the gallery label:
In a grand garden setting, a young woman hoists a string of flags up a pole. At her feet an elderly veteran in revolutionary French Communards' dress is on his knees, selecting and preparing flags with the help of a youthful assistant. James Tissot's artistic career in Paris ended after he sided with radical Communards in 1871 and self-exiled to London. In England he prospered, creating often ambiguous narrative paintings in which two powerful forces of modernity intersect: contemporary politics and fashion. In this case, the flag-wielding heroine recalls Eugène Delacroix's (1798-1863) radical painting Liberty Leading the People, 1830. The flags relate to royal visits to London in 1874, while the woman's striped, bustled gown reflects Tissot's delight in Japanese female fashions, seen in prints imported into France following the reopening of trade relations between Japan and the West in the late 1850s.
1875, James Tissot, The Holiday (Still on Top) -- Auckland Art Gallery
From the gallery label:
In a grand garden setting, a young woman hoists a string of flags up a pole. At her feet an elderly veteran in revolutionary French Communards' dress is on his knees, selecting and preparing flags with the help of a youthful assistant. James Tissot's artistic career in Paris ended after he sided with radical Communards in 1871 and self-exiled to London. In England he prospered, creating often ambiguous narrative paintings in which two powerful forces of modernity intersect: contemporary politics and fashion. In this case, the flag-wielding heroine recalls Eugène Delacroix's (1798-1863) radical painting Liberty Leading the People, 1830. The flags relate to royal visits to London in 1874, while the woman's striped, bustled gown reflects Tissot's delight in Japanese female fashions, seen in prints imported into France following the reopening of trade relations between Japan and the West in the late 1850s.