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Le Nouvel Opéra de Paris (Sculpture Ornementale)

1865–72
Not on view
Among the most lavish Second Empire monuments was the Paris Opéra, designed by Charles Garnier. Elaborately decorated in a neo-Baroque style and devoting as much space and luxe to grand ceremonial arcades, foyers, and staircases as to the theater hall proper, Garnier's design was selected in 1860 from among 171 entries and, once built, served as a model for many late-nineteenth-century theaters around the world. Construction of this elaborate confection required the clearing of some three acres and lasted until January 1875-more than four years after the fall of Napoleon III.

Along with countless construction workers, masons, and artisans, some sixty-five sculptors worked on the statuary and ornamentation of the Opéra. In this photograph, stone carvers two hundred feet above the street chip away at the enormous garlands of fruit that formed the decorative freize on the sides of the fly tower.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Le Nouvel Opéra de Paris (Sculpture Ornementale)
  • Artist: Louis-Emile Durandelle (French, 1839–1917)
  • Date: 1865–72
  • Medium: Albumen silver print from glass negative
  • Dimensions: 38.3 x 27.9 cm. (15 1/16 x 11 in.)
  • Classification: Photographs
  • Credit Line: Purchase, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Gift, through Joyce and Robert Menschel, 1995
  • Object Number: 1995.9
  • Curatorial Department: Photographs

More Artwork

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[Charles Garnier in the Drafting Room While Designing the New Paris Opera], Louis-Emile Durandelle French, Albumen silver print from glass negative
[Charles Garnier in the Drafting Room While Designing the New Paris Opera]
Louis-Emile Durandelle
ca. 1870
Ceramic Horn, Glazed pottery, French
Ceramic Horn
French
late 18th or early 19th century
Cape Horn near Celilo, Carleton E. Watkins American, Albumen silver print from glass negative
Cape Horn near Celilo
Carleton E. Watkins
1867
Édouard Manet, Seated, Holding His Hat, Edgar Degas French, Graphite and black chalk
Édouard Manet, Seated, Holding His Hat
Edgar Degas
Sitter Edouard Manet
ca. 1868
Zoe, Maid of Athens, Julia Margaret Cameron British, born India, Albumen silver print from glass negative
Zoe, Maid of Athens
Julia Margaret Cameron
1866

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