Rochefort's Escape, Manet

Victor Henri Rochefort, along with Pain, Grousset, and Jourde, escaped by boat in 1874 from the prison in New Caledonia, now known as Fort Teremba.
Before his imprisonment, in 1868 Henri founded La Lanterne, a controversial and provocative publication, named after the Parisian cry À la lanterne, which incited people to lynch aristocrats, clerics, and other figures of authority. Thousands of people were hung from streetlamps (lanternes) by furious mobs seeking justice or revenge.

The sea, shimmering and dark, rendered with light and chaotic brushstrokes, covers almost the entire canvas, the range of navy blues and the solitude of the landscape, denote the melancholy the artist himself felt as he saw his republican aspirations collapse.