19. Charles Meryon
(1821-1868)
Saint-Etienne-du-Mont, Paris

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Meryon, Saint-Etienne-du-Mont, Paris

Saint-Etienne-du-Mont, Paris

Etching, 1842, from Eaux Fortes sur Paris, Delteil/Wright 30 iv/viii, 246 x 129 mm., ex collection : C. W. Dowdeswell (Lugt 690). Superb, darkly atmospheric impression with plate tone on textured laid paper with good margins. The impression shows the additional shading described by Delteil/Wright for the fourth state, but the knob at the top of the cupola is not yet cut by the platemark, and this may be an intermediate state between iii and iv. It is, at any rate, quite different from the clean-wiped impressions usually seen of the fourth state. At the time of etching this plate, Meryon lived only a block away from the scene. The image actually comprises three different buildings and three different styles of architectures; at the left is the Medieval and no- longer-extant Collège de Montaigu, at the center the Renaissance church and at the right a bit of the Neoclassical Panthéon. But, though accurate in details, the view reflects Meryon’s imagination and not reality. Even in the nineteenth century no observer could have seen what Meryon saw, for the three buildings were never that close together.

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