Images

A lit de justice on 12 September 1715 in the presence of King Louis XV of France, against the Parlement of Paris. Power struggles between royal and parlement authority would continue up until the French Revolution abolished both monarchy...

Portrait of Charles-Alexandre de Calonne (1734-1802), Controller-General under King Louis XVI of France, oil on canvas, painted by Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, 1784. Royal Collection of the British royal family.

The meeting of the Assembly of Notables of 1787 in Versailles, engraving by Claude Niquet, late 18th century. National Archives, Pierrefitte-sur-Seine, France.

Title page of Defending Clerical Marriage (1524), an open letter by reformer and theologian Katharina Zell (nee Schütz, l. 1497-1562).

Home of Matthäus and Katharina Zell, illustration by Henri Armand-Delille, 1902. National University Library of Strasbourg.

An 1873 oil on canvas painting, The Cotton Market, New Orleans (aka The Cotton Office), by Edgar Degas (1834-1917), the French impressionist painter. The scene shows a busy office with 13 people, including buyers, brokers, and office layabouts...

An 1874 oil on canvas painting, The Dance Class, by Edgar Degas (1834-1917), the French impressionist painter. The expert conducting the class, probably an examination in the Paris Opera, is Jules Perrot (1810-1892). The scene is one that...

A c. 1876 oil on canvas painting, Absinthe (aka In the Café), by Edgar Degas (1834-1917), the French impressionist painter. Here is a depiction of the impoverished and alienated lives of the capital's poor. Degas used two models for this...

A c. 1876 pastel on paper, The Star (l'étoile), by Edgar Degas (1834-1917), the French impressionist painter. The artist painted many scenes of ballerinas, but most, like this one, are not of the dancers performing but either rehearsing or...

Saints Augustine and Monica, oil on canvas painting by Ary Scheffer, 1854. National Gallery, London.