This intact album of illustrations focuses on the subject of the Paris Commune in 1871, the short-lived insurrection against the central French government by the people of Paris. The Commune, widely supported by artists, ended in a bloody battle in the streets where many citizens were massacred. In this illustration, Benedict Masson, who was clearly not in favor of the communards or their desire to establish a people’s republic, draws a lighthearted allegory where a female figure, representing painting, with pallet and brushes falling with her, has been tossed off a cliff by two communards. The inscription poses the question, “How will she land, by head, or by tail?” Though never mentioned in today’s surveys of 19th-century art, Masson was a successful painter of murals in state buildings during the second empire of Napoleon III, the fall of which led to the establishment of the Paris Commune. Masson produced major allegorical works in Paris for the Hôtel des Invalides, where Napoleon I is buried, and in rooms of the Le Conseil d’État. The artist was a frequent exhibitor in the yearly Salon exhibitions where he submitted historical, mythological, and genre subjects.