Undressing The Allegory Behind Lady Liberté

Reading the concealed references in Delacroix’s painting.

Liberty Leading the People (La Liberté guidant le peuple) by Eugène Delacroix, Louvre Museum | Public Domain Wiki Commons

‘God, she is filthy’ wrote a French newspaper L’Avenir in 1831. ‘The lowest type of Harlot’ wrote a critic about Delacroix’s depiction of Lady Liberty in the Journal des Artistes in May of the same year. Overnight this painting became…