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Georges Sand

Artist/Maker (French, 1813–1891)
Date1842
MediumLithograph
DimensionsOverall: 14 1/2 × 9 13/16 in. (36.8 × 24.9 cm)
Credit LineGift of Eugene L. Garbaty
PortfolioMiroir drôlatique (Burlesque Mirror)
Object number1951.87.4
Status
Not on view
More Information
This caricature, or portrait-charge, of feminist writer George Sand (pseudonym of Amandine Aurore Lucie Dupin Dudevant) is typical of strategies used by the press to trivialize her literary accomplishments by focusing attention on her cross-dressing instead of her ideas.<
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> An unconventional agreement with her husband allowed Sand to live independently in Paris, where she often wore men’s clothing. Sand’s memoirs describe the freedom afforded by men’s attire:<
> “[...] I had made for myself a redingote-guérite (a man’s overcoat) in heavy gray cloth, pants and vest to match. [...] I can’t express the pleasure my boots gave me: I would gladly have slept with them on [...] With those little iron-shod heels, I was solid on the pavement. I flew from one end of Paris to the other. […] I ran out in every kind of weather, I came home at every sort of hour, I sat in the pit at the theater. No one paid attention to me, and no one guessed at my disguise... No one knew me, no one looked at me, no one found fault with me; I was an atom lost in that immense crowd.”<
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Exhibition History
The Human Comedy: Chronicles of 19th Century France
  • Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (September 6, 2013 - December 22, 2013 )
Women Bound and Unbound
  • Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (February 5, 2019 - May 26, 2019 )
Collections
  • European