Which French painter made Liberty Leading the People in 1830?

The French painter who made Liberty Leading the People in 1830 was Eugène Delacroix. The large Romantic painting commemorates the July Revolution, when Parisians rose against King Charles X and helped bring his reign to an end.

At the center, an allegorical female figure representing Liberty strides over a barricade while carrying the French tricolour and a bayonetted musket. She wears a Phrygian cap, a symbol associated with revolutionary freedom, and leads people from different social classes, including a worker, a student, and a boy carrying pistols.

A common mistake is to associate the painting with the French Revolution of 1789. Delacroix painted it four decades later, in response to the events of July 1830. The work combines contemporary political drama with symbolic figures, which is why it functions as both a historical image and an enduring emblem of revolution.

The French government bought the painting in 1831, but later removed it from public view because its political message seemed inflammatory. It is now displayed at the Louvre in Paris.