Eaux-Fortes sur Paris par C. Meryon. 1852.

Artist Charles Méryon (French, 1821–1868)

Date1852

MediumEtching on grey paper

DimensionsPlate: 6 1/2 × 4 7/8 inches (16.5 × 12.4 cm);
Sheet: 7 1/2 × 5 7/8 inches (19.1 × 14.9 cm)

ClassificationsPrints

Credit LineBequest of George H. Sabine

Terms

Etching
Animals
Insects
Shell
grey

Object number61.144

Label CopyMeryon’s title page trades on the common conceit of the fictive stone tablet seen, for example, in Canaletto’s title page for his views of Venice. However, Meryon is careful to make his tablet a slab of limestone, with fossils of ancient mollusks embedded in it, to emphasize the building material common to all of the great Medieval architectural monuments of Paris that appear in his series. In the process, like Canaletto, Meryon borrows for his own art some of the majesty of the ages.

(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)

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