Acrylic on canvas

Signature on the back

100 x 100 x 1.6 cm.

39.4 x 39.4 x 0.6 inch.

Unique

 

Celebrities of Occitanie Collection

Illegitimate daughter of a noble. Widowed young. Moved to Paris and walked straight into the Revolution.

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In 1791 Olympe de Gouges wrote the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen. By 1792, inheritance equality, divorce, and civil recognition of women were all law. Every single one of them hers to claim.

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Then Napoleon's Civil Code arrived in 1804 and rolled most of it back. The men in charge had clearly been paying attention.

She was guillotined in 1793.

 

The rights she fought for took another century and a half to stick.