Inspired by the centuries growing radical idea and the financial conditions of the poor, the French Revolution from 1789 until 1799 saw the end of absolute monarchy in France, the terror of the guillotine, the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte and a global conflict  that extended from the Caribbean to the Middle East. These headless portraits testify to the juxtaposition of ideals and brutality seen during the period.  Olympe de Gouges (7 May 1748 – 3 November 1793), was a French playwright, early feminist and abolitionist, whose political writings and plays argued for the better conditions of slaves, and her demands that Woman be given the same rights as Men. Her Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen (1791), predates Mary Wollstonecraft’s ‘Vindication of the Rights of Women’ by a year. She was executed during the ‘Reign of Terror’ (1793–1794) for her associations with the Girondists the political enemies of the Jacobins.