Monument to the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen

About

The Monument to the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen or Monument of Human and Citizen Rights in French, is located in Paris, in the Champs de Mars gardens on Avenue Charles-Risler. Commissioned by the City of Paris, it was erected in 1989 on the occasion of the bicentennial of the French Revolution. Inspired by Egyptian mastaba tombs, it includes many references to revolutionary imagery. It is the work of the Czech sculptor Ivan Theimer. The monument is composed of several elements:

a freestone square flat construction, opening into an octagonal interior space, bed from above, its external facades are endorsed with graven texts, various reliefs and 12 stones inlaid with bronze seals, one for each of the European Community member states in 1989; two bronze obelisks covered with a profusion of finely detailed symbols and texts, including that of the 1789 French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen; a statue of a man weathering a toga and holding several documents in his hands; the statue of a man inviting onlookers to read the texts carved on the obelisks; the statue of a woman with a child who wears a hat made of newspaper (chronology of...