# Caricature of Léon Gambetta [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [GILL, André]() - Date: 1851-1900 - Technique: Hand-coloured engraving, 457 x 305 mm ## Commentary This engraving was published as the cover of L'Eclipse on 17 April 1870. It is a caricature of Léon Gambetta \(1838-1882\), a French lawyer and republican politician who proclaimed and played a prominent role in the French Third Republic. On 2 September 1870, the French Army suffered a disastrous defeat at the Battle of Sedan, in which the emperor Napoleon III surrendered and was taken prisoner. The news arrived in Paris on the night of 3 September, and early on 4 September large-scale protests began in the capital. Parisians broke into the Palais Bourbon, meeting place of the Chamber of Deputies, interrupting a session and calling for a Republic. Later that day, from the Hôtel de Ville, Gambetta proclaimed the French Republic to a large crowd gathered in the Place de l'Hôtel-de-Ville. ## Related artworks - [Boulevard Montmartre in Paris]() - [Caricature of Émile Littré and Charles Darwin]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()