Koud-water badhuis van Chevrier in Parijs
1864
Medium
etching
Dimensions
130; 143
About this artwork
ets en droge naald
Art Historical Context
Charles Meryon’s *Koud-water badhuis Chevrier in Parijs (1864) captures a slice of everyday Parisian life in the mid-19th. This intimate etching depicts Chevrier’s cold-water bathhouse, a public facility offering invigorating hydrotherapy popular among the working class before modern plumbing transformed urban hygiene. Meryon, a master etcher renowned for his haunting views of old Paris, documented the city’s vanishing architecture just prior to Baron Haussmann’s sweeping renovations, preserving these scenes with meticulous detail. Rendered in etching combined with drypoint—a technique where ...
About the Artist
Charles Meryon · 1821–1868
Charles Meryon, born on November 23, 1821, in Paris, was the illegitimate son of English physician Dr. Charles Lewis Meryon and dancer Pierre-Narcisse Chaspoux (stage name Narcisse Gentil) at the Paris Opéra. His half-sister Fanny, from his mother's prior relationship with Viscount Lowther, remained in contact after their mother's death in 1838. Raised partly outside Paris before attending Pension...