Water for All

An innovative examination of human-lion encounters and the representations of these charismatic animals in the visual culture of post-revolutionary France.

In artistic traditions dating back to antiquity, lions have been associated with strength and authority. The figure of the lion in nineteenth-century France was at a crossroads between these historical meanings and contemporary developments that redefined the animal's significance, such as the literal presence of lions in public menageries.

In this highly original study, Katie Hornstein explores the relationships between animals, viewers, and visual production. She examines the fascinating encounters between artists, viewers, and lions that took place—in menageries and circuses, on canvases, and in the pages of books—and argues that these encounters gave rise to new perceptions of power, empire, and the natural world.

*Mito y Menagerie* considers a range of visual objects, placing in dialogue circus animal photographs, hunting manuals, and zoo guides with sculptures, drawings, and paintings by artists such as Théodore Géricault, Eugène Delacroix, Édouard Manet, and Rosa Bonheur. Illuminating the lives of individual lions against the backdrop of social change and colonial expansion, Hornstein builds a fresh theoretical framework for thinking about animals as more than symbols or passive subjects, recognizing a history in which both humans and animals played a role.