CHARLES MERYON
1821 Paris – Charenton 1868
57 La Salle des Pas-Perdues à L’ancien Palais-de-Justice, Paris. 1855 After J. Androuet DuCerceau
Etching. 27.1 x 43.4 cm Delteil-Wright 48/IV; Schneiderman 51/IV Watermark: crowned coat of arms with the letters “HP” and the side mark (HU)DELIST Provenance: A. Barrion (Lugt 76)
Excellent, finely inked impression from the collection of A. Barrion, about which G. Bourcard reports: Ici toutes les épreuves sont de qualité abolument exceptionelle. While three trial proofs of the 1st state are found in public collections in Chicago, Toledo, and Boston, neither Delteil-Wright nor Schneiderman succeeded in documenting and exemplar of the 2 nd state with the finished composition. According to a notation in an auction catalog for the collection of H. Destailler, the sale taking place in November of 1894, only eight copies of the 3 rd estate are said to exist – with an elaborate inscription by Meryon along the lower edge. S chneiderman was however able to track down only three copies in museums. For the 4 th state, to which the present impression belongs, the plate – excessively large from the very beginning – was reduced in size, albeit without infringing upon the image itself, and furnished with the notation: “A. Delâtre Imp. R. Fg St Jacques no 81,” as well as the artist’s address: “C. Meryon sculp. D’après Ducerceau MDCCCLV.” With paper margins measuring 1 – 3 cm and the intact, unf lattened platemark. Flawlessly fresh and pristine apart from a pin-sized perforation, which was presumablyalready present on the old, 18th -century paper during the printing process. One of three etchings after engravings from Les Plus Excellents Bastiments de France, par Jacques Androuet DuCerceau, Architecte à Paris 1579. Produced together with other works after 17th and 18th century architectural drawings and engravings in connection with the preparation of Meryon’s Eau-Fortes sur Paris. Owing to the opening of Victor Hugo’s novel Notre Dame de Paris, but also due to renovations carried out during the 1850s, the vestibule of the Palais de Justice received special attention at the time. Beneath the composition in the 2 nd state, Meryon notated: Il faut avoir examiné la pièce originale dans ses moindres details (comme j’ai été force de le faire) pour en savoir toute la beauté. Il va sans dire que l’architecture y est traitée de main de maître. Les statues des rois sont d’un grand style, toutes bizarres qu’elles puissent paraîtreau premier abord. Quant aux petites figures, qui animent la salle d’une façon si piquante et qu’on pourrait croire faites avec négligence, elles sont, je pense, des plus remarquables. Consanguines, d’une certaine manière, avec celles de Reynier Zeeman, le graveur de navines, en ce qui concerne la vérité de la mimique, elles rappellent dans de certaines parties (les petites jambs surtout) la belle correction de Marc Antoine. Il n’est pas jusqu’à l’expression des masques qui, quoique indiquee avec une naïveté presque enfantine, ne soit d’une grande science physionomique. Meryon sculp. D’après la pièce originale de Ducerceau, due à L’obligeance de monsieur Destailler, achitecte.
136