Rabble of Dressed-Up Monkeys Attacking the Barricades During the June Days

This lithograph depicts the violent street fighting of June 1848, when French government forces suppressed the workers' uprising in Paris. The composition, with its chaotic scramble of figures clambering over barricades, derives from the tradition of Hogarth and Gillray, who used exaggeration and grotesque anatomy to mock political opponents. Such imagery was circulated widely through lithography's affordable mass production, which made it a powerful tool for shaping public opinion.