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The death penalty has given rise to many different types of discourse, some indignant, some extolling the merits of the ultimate punishment, but also visual images. The institutions of law enforcement have produced or been the source of a very wide variety of images. Illustrators, engravers, painters, caricaturists have depicted execution scenes, each in their own way according to their convictions and their own style. The death penalty is therefore not a punishment without images. A large part of these images have been produced by French artists and illustrators. Under their brushes, scissors or pencils, the ultimate punishment often provokes a laugh of denunciation aimed at a more or less broad public. They deal with the death penalty not only in France, but also in Spain and Africa. Sometimes the focus is on the condemned person, other times it is on the other people involved and sometimes even on the instruments of execution. These images have not remained in isolation. They have been circulated to the point of becoming a kind of picture book of an era, which must be taken into account to understand its social representations.