The Musée d’Art moderne de Fontevraud presents an exhibition devoted to one of the most significant manifestations of this winter celebration: the Paris Carnival, which throughout the 19th century grew to such an extent that it rivaled and even surpassed the Carnival of Venice.

Before the forty days of fasting during Lent, the carnival offered the people a joyful and liberating moment where all levels of society came together. Festivities multiplied, masked figures paraded through the streets, and major highly codified events took place: the promenade du Bœuf gras, the descent of the Courtille, the washerwomen’s procession, and the masked balls.

A political as much as a social outlet, the carnival allowed for all kinds of excesses and gave free rein to satire directed against those in power, particularly during the July Monarchy.

On view in this exhibition are ninety engravings loaned by the Maison de Balzac in Paris, demonstrating the importance of the carnival during this period. Illustrated by the greatest caricaturists such as Daumier and Gavarni, humorously commented on by journalists, and analyzed by writers including Balzac and Théophile Gautier, the carnival fascinated contemporaries because it became a space of total freedom and transgression.