The French Popular Lithographic Imagery, 1815-1870 series reproduces in twelve volumes approximately 5000 nineteenth-century lithographs from the collections of the Bibliothèque nationale.

In Volume 11: Pinups and Erotica, Beatrice Farwell has collected more than three hundred lithographs showing women as passive, erotic objects. Inexpensive and ephemeral, these sujets gracieux decorated the walls of brothels and were sold to a large bachelor market free from the strictures of family values. While numerous fantasies from this genre have been enshrined in modernist painting, Professor Farwell’s effort to catalog everyday representations demonstrates the large degree to which these powerful images circulated in popular culture.