A French Revolutionary Republican Calendar by Francois-Marie Queverdo 1793-94
QUEVERDO, Francois-Marie-Isidore (1748-1797), painter and engraver; PIQUET, engraver of lettering. French Revolutionary Republican Calendar, Year II. Paris, 1793-1794.
Single engraved broadside, 310 x 380 mm, printed on laid paper with generous margins. Engraved area approximately 245 x 275 mm. Some light scattered spotting and handling marks to the margins, with old mounting traces; a few light creases, principally marginal. The engraved image itself remains clean, dark and well defined. Very Good.
An elaborate engraved calendar for Year II of the French Republic, published in Paris by the citoyens Queverdo, painter and engraver, and Piquet, engraver of lettering. The sheet presents the newly established Republican Calendar, introduced during the French Revolution to replace the traditional Christian calendar, dividing the year into twelve months of three ten-day decades and assigning individual days names derived principally from plants, animals and agricultural implements. The five complementary days, or "Fetes Sansculotides", are also given.
Far more than a practical calendar, the sheet is a display of Revolutionary iconography. The calendar is enclosed between columns representing "Union" and "Force", with figures of Liberty and Equality above. Portrait medallions commemorate the assassinated revolutionaries Le Peletier de Saint-Fargeau and Jean-Paul Marat. The large allegorical scene above depicts the Bastille and the destruction of the old order amid lightning and flames, surmounted by the all-seeing eye and the inscription "Surveillance". Beneath appears the emphatically Montagnard declaration "Gloire Immortelle a la Sainte Montagne".
The imprint reads: "A Paris chez les Citoyens Queverdo Peintre et Graveur Rue Poupee No. 6. Section de Marat. Piquet Graveur d'Ecriture Rue du Foin No. 265. Section de Beaurepaire." Francois-Marie-Isidore Queverdo (1748-1797) was a French painter, draughtsman and engraver whose work included prints produced during the Revolutionary period. A particularly attractive survival from the Revolution.