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Charles Meryon

1821 - 1868

La Tour de l’Horloge by Charles Meryon
 

La Tour de l’Horloge   1852

  Original etching with engraving.
Signed with the artist’s monogram in the plate.
Ref: Schneiderman 23 x/x
S 500 x 334 mm; P 263 x 185 mm; I 246 x 181 mm
SOLD
 
One of only 15 impressions printed with Delâtre’s engraved lettering. This scarce state of the plate was printed by Pierron under the watchful eye of Charles Meryon himself. This was the final printing of the plate before it was completely effaced in May 1861.

Designed for Charles Meryon’s influential series of etchings entitled ‘Eaux-fortes sur Paris’, La Tour de l’Horloge shows the imposing clock tower which once stood on Rue Montagne in Paris, just before it was demolished in 1851. Charles Meryon made his preparatory sketches for this etching whilst the demoliton work was in progress and etched this plate in 1852. Some demolition workers can be seen atop the scaffold which has been erected in front of the building; beyond them, other workers have already removed a considerable section of roof, allowing daylight to stream through the main building and out of the front windows in two pronounced rays of light.

Charles Meryon was obsessed with early architecture, which he regarded as possessed with the spirits of the past. He conceived his series of ‘Eaux-fortes sur Paris’, as a means of preserving the great buildings which were being demolished in Paris at that time, through his etched depictions.

On cream laid paper with armorial crest watermark, with full margins. Very fine condition.