Etchings of Paris; Title page to the suite

1852

Not on view

Charles Meryon was celebrated among artists and collectors alike during the nineteenth century for his etched depictions of Paris. These works combined a documentary eye on the French capital—which was then undergoing dramatic transformation from a medieval to distinctly modern city—with fantastic details that varied from the whimsical to the morbid. His first and best-known album, Eaux-fortes sur Paris, included twenty-two urban views inspired by the novels and poetry of Victor Hugo (1802–1885). This title page opened the series, and showed, as the art critic Philippe Burty described in his early monograph on Meryon, "a block of stone with fossils and moss imprints . . . symbolizing the physical foundations of Paris."

Artwork Details

Object Information

Overview

Provenance

Catalogue Raisonné

Title: Etchings of Paris; Title page to the suite
Series/Portfolio: Etchings of Paris
Artist: Charles Meryon (French, 1821–1868)
Date: 1852
Medium: Etching on brown wove paper; first state
Dimensions: plate: 6 1/2 x 4 15/16 in. (16.5 x 12.5 cm)
Classification: Prints
Credit Line: The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1963
Object Number: 63.606.11
Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints

More Artwork

By Charles Meryon

In the same medium

From the same time and place

Lunar Law, Charles Meryon French, Pen and brown ink, brush and brown and colored washes, graphite, on etching — Lunar Law
Charles Meryon
1856

Ceramic Horn, Glazed pottery, French — Ceramic Horn
French
late 18th or early 19th century

The Coiffure, after Mary Cassatt, Janet Lee Kadesky Ruttenberg, Drypoint and soft-ground etching, printed in color, on heavy ivory wove paper — The Coiffure, after Mary Cassatt
Multiple artists/makers
1975

The Mortuary, Paris (La Morgue), Charles Meryon French, Etching and drypoint, third state of seven — The Mortuary, Paris (La Morgue)
Charles Meryon
1854

Moulin Rouge: La Goulue, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec French, Lithograph printed in four colors; three sheets of wove paper — Moulin Rouge: La Goulue
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Printer Affiches Américaines, Charles Lévy
1891

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