La Pompe du Pont Notre-Dame, Paris 1858

Item

Title

La Pompe du Pont Notre-Dame, Paris 1858

Creator

Henri Alexandre Saffrey
French, 1832–1895
After Charles Marville
French, 1816–1879

Date

c. 1875

Materials

Etching

Measurements

plate: 7-5/8 x 10-15/16 in. (19.7 x 27.2 cm), sheet: 11-5/8 x 14-11/16 in. (29.5 x 37.3 cm)

Description

At first glance, Henri Saffrey’s view of the Notre Dame pump house appears to be contemporaneous with Charles Meryon’s adjacent rendition. But the later date given here is fairly secure. An example of La Pompe du Pont Notre-Dame was exhibited in the Paris Salon of 1875, and the publisher Alfred Cadart, founder of the Société des Aquafortistes (Society of Etchers) and a major proponent of the etching revival in France, included the print in his L’Eau-forte en 1875 (Etching in 1875). With the structure by that time long since destroyed, Saffrey found a source for his imagery in a photograph (right) taken no later than about 1854 by Charles Marville, who had been commissioned to document those sections of Paris that were soon to be lost to Baron Haussmann’s modernization efforts.

Source

Palmer Museum of Art, The Pennsylvania State University

Identifier

2013.25

Rights

This image is posted publicly for non-profit educational uses, excluding printed publication. Other uses are not permitted.