We read on the outside sign of the stall: "Here we clean it off with shiny wax"
Inside the stall, we read: "Here we read the newspapers while being scuffed".
The scene is passes through one of the stalls in the galleries of the Palais-Royal garden in Paris, which became “Palais-Egalité” during the Revolution.
We see young boys cleaning the muddy boots of two elegant men wearing the characteristic costume of the "Incredible" fashionable under the Directory.
One holds a newspaper in his hand, another grabs a leaflet stretched out by a young woman with bare breasts, this leaflet bears the inscription "List of young ladies of the Palais Egalité", an allusion to this famous place of the Parisian prostitution that these galleries of the former Palais-Royal were at the time.
The engraving had some gaps and has been restored.
Nice old frame.