"After you" - Public domain portrait drawing

Bismarck and Louis Napoleon motion simultaneously to each other to enter the door of peace first. A female figure holding an olive branch, opens the door.
Inscribed below image: Watermark 1823 Richard Doyle 1867.
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Bequest and gift; Caroline and Erwin Swann; 1974; (DLC/PP-1974:232.175)
German chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, primarily concerned with creating a powerful and unified Germany, and French emperor, Louis Napoleon, determined to reassert France's prominence as a world power, strove to attain their goals through the expansion of their empires. Realizing that their domestic and foreign interests were closely intertwined, both endeavored to maintain balanced relations. However, the cunning Bismarck, in an effort to prevent the loss of essential territories to Napoleon, avoided striking a formal alliance that could be detrimentally binding. Doyle graphically demostrates the circumspect congeniality of both leaders.