Picturing Novembrists in Paris

Abstract

This essay examines a print series called Les Polonais et les Polonaises de la Révolution du 29 Novembre, 1830, a collection of just under one-hundred lithographic portraits of individuals involved in the November Uprising of 1830–1831. It was produced and authored by Józef Straszewicz (1801–1838), a revolutionary turned émigré publisher and art dealer in Paris. Serialized between 1832 and 1837, the project was described as a “Historical Gallery of Contemporary Poland.” From its release to the present day, it has supplied publishers with the likenesses of renowned Polish martyrs as well the Wielka Emigracja's most illustrious exiles. Yet despite their widespread use as illustrations, the portraits have rarely been analyzed on their own terms: as remarkable specimens of romantic lithography and diasporic Polish art. In this essay, I argue that the visual format adopted by Straszewicz—a portrait vignette accompanied by a lithographic facsimile of the sitter's signature—enabled the publisher to communicate specifically Polish political concerns according to a visual framework associated with transnational liberal ideas about an individual's place in public life. By focusing more specifically on the series’ inclusion of seven women involved in the Uprising, I argue that the print portrait format cogently expressed gendered ideas about diasporic political participation and the conceptual link between suffering and national belonging in émigré political discourse.