Binant Series
The Binant Series (Scenes of civilian and military life) (French - Suite Binant - Scènes de la vie civile et militaire) was a series of 36 large-format paintings commissioned by (and named after) Parisian art-material dealer Alfred Binant (1822-1904) in the wake of the Siege of Paris. 13 artists were involved, producing a precious record of the recent Franco-Prussian War and Paris Commune, first exhibited in 1872. Only thirteen of the full paintings survive, all of which are now in the Musée Carnavalet, though 36 modellos for the series were rediscovered in the stores of the Musée Gassendi in Digne-les-Bains in June 2017. History In January 1871, Louis Alfred Binant, a Parisian dealer in paintings, artists' paper, crayons, paintings and other artists' materials with shops on rue de Cléry and boulevard Rochechouart (now boulevard Marguerite-de-Rochechouart), commissioned thirteen artists to produce 36 large-format oil on canvas paintings "certainly made two metres by four" to document the 1870-1871 siege of Paris. According to him, he also wanted "[to make] a work of memory, for neither books (however well-informed), nor engravings can speak to the eyes and therefore to the spirit as clearly as a painting". The paintings were exhibited from November 1871