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Paris. Place-St. Germain-L'Auxerrois, No. 80
Paris. Place-St. Germain-L'Auxerrois, No. 80

Paris. Place-St. Germain-L'Auxerrois, No. 80

Artist (French, 1813–1889)
Date1860s
MediumAlbumen print
DimensionsImage: 7 7/8 × 10 15/16 inches (20 × 27.8 cm);
Sheet: 12 3/4 × 16 7/8 inches (32.4 × 42.9 cm);
Mat: 16 × 20 1/2 inches (40.6 × 52 cm)
ClassificationsPhotographs
Credit LineGift of Jonathan Stein, Class of 1966
Terms
  • Photographs
  • Albumen print
  • Arches
  • Belfries
  • Bell towers
  • Churches
  • Fences
  • Public buildings
  • Religious buildings
  • Rose windows
  • Squares (Open spaces)
  • Streetscapes
  • Town halls
  • Tracery
  • Urban views
  • France
Object number82.098.017
Label CopyIn this photograph, taken from Baldus’s well-known series of photographs of the city, contemporary Parisians would have seen the quaint square with its benches populated by Parisians taking the air. But given the freshness of revolutionary activities in the city, they would also likely have identified this as the spot where General Etienne Gérard, decorated veteran of Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow, massed revolutionary troops to storm the Louvre and overthrow the monarchy of Charles X during the “Three Glorious Days,” July 27, 28, and 29, 1830. They would have admired the elegant, flamboyant Gothic parish church of the French kings, but also remembered it as the hiding place for revolutionary sharpshooters and the refuge for wounded insurgents during those heady days.

(Andrew C. Weislogel, "Mirror of the City: The Printed View in Italy and Beyond, 1450–1940," catalogue accompanying an exhibition organized by the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, curated by Andrew C. Weislogel and Stuart M. Blumin, and presented at the Johnson Museum August 11–December 23, 2012)