Le Pont Marie
1903 or 1904
Medium
albumen print
Dimensions
sheet: 17.7 x 21.7 cm (6 15/16 x 8 9/16 in.) overall: 35.6 x 39.4 cm (14 x 15 1/2 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Partial and Promised Anonymous Gift
Accession Number
1996.98.1
Art Historical Context
Eugène Atget's *Le Pont Marie* (1903 or 1904) captures the graceful arches of this historic Paris bridge spanning the Seine, a poignant snapshot of the city's fading old quarters. Atget, a pioneering French, devoted his career to documenting everyday Parisian life and architecture from the 1890s to the 1920s, creating an invaluable visual archive before widespread modernization erased these scenes. His unadorned, almost haunting images preserved the poetry of cobblestone streets and stone facades, influencing later artists like the Surrealists and photographers such as Berenice Abbott. Printe...
About the Artist
Eugène Atget
Eugène Atget, born Jean-Eugène-Auguste Atget on February 12, 1857, in Libourne, France, faced early hardship as an orphan at age seven after his carriage-builder father died in 1862 and his mother soon followed. Raised by his maternal grandparents in Bordeaux, he briefly joined the merchant navy after secondary education and pursued acting in Paris from 1878, attending the Conservatoire d'Art Dram...