City Ramparts

Art Historical Context

City Ramparts, created around 1885 by French artist Maxime Lalanne, offers a contemplative glimpse of historic urban fortifications. The compact etching, with its intimate scale of roughly 4 5/8 by 7 3/16 inches, draws attention to the textured stone walls and architectural details that speak to a city’s layered past. Lalanne’s sensitive handling of light and line evokes both the strength and quiet solitude of these structures. Etching on laid paper was a favored medium during the nineteenth-century etching revival, allowing artists to achieve remarkable precision and atmospheric effects through the controlled use of acid on copper plates. This printmaking technique made finely detailed works widely available, transforming city views into accessible art objects for collectors and the public alike. Now in the collection of the National Gallery of Art through the generous gift of Carol and James Goodfriend, City Ramparts preserves Lalanne’s vision of enduring civic architecture at a moment when many European cities were rapidly modernizing.

About the Artist

Maxime Lalanne · 1827–1886

François Antoine Maxime Lalanne (1827–1886) was born in Bordeaux into a family of civil servants, initially pursuing classical studies and a law career. At the Institution Oré, he learned drawing from instructor Saulnier and showed early promise, exhibiting pencil and pastel works at Bordeaux's Philomathique Society in 1850, where he earned a bronze medal. Encouraged by architect Léo Drouyn, Lalan...