An exploration of how an official French visual culture normalized France's colonial project and exposed citizens and subjects to racialized ideas of life in the empire.

Rebecca Peabody is head of Research Projects and Programs at the Getty Research Institute.

Steven Nelson is the dean of the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. He was previously professor of African and African American art history at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Dominic Thomas is Madeleine L. Letessier Professor and chair of the Department of European Languages and Transcultural Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles.