The Apse of Notre-Dame, Paris

Meryon was the first nineteenth-century French etcher to make the Parisian cityscape his primary focus. This is the final preparatory drawing that he made for an etching of the same title (29.107.103; 57.531.5; 67.630.25; 17.3.414), as part of his suite of twenty-two prints entitled "Eaux-fortes sur Paris" (Etching on Paris). With a precise graphite line, Meryon details all the compositional elements of his design and he remained faithful to it in translating the drawing to the etching plate. Executed approximately midway through a twenty-year restoration of Notre Dame, the work gives little indication of the renovation underway. It shows the cathedral as it looked prior to the completion of the spire in 1859.