Le Pont Saint-Michel
Medium
Wood engraving in black on cream laid Japanese tissue
Dimensions
Image: 23.5 × 16.2 cm (9 5/16 × 6 7/16 in.); Sheet, folded: 42.9 × 31.5 cm (16 15/16 × 12 7/16 in.)
Classification
wood engraving
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
77768
Art Historical Context
Welcome to the Prints and Drawings gallery, where Louis Auguste Lepère's *Le Pont Saint-Michel*1890) captures the bustling heart of late 19th-century Paris This wood engraving depicts the iconic Pont Saint-Michel bridge spanning the Seine River, a vital link near Notre-Dame Cathedral alive with pedestrians, vendors, and the city's everyday rhythm. Lepère, leading French printmaker (1849–1918), was renowned for his masterful wood engravings that revived the medium as a fine art form during the fin-de-siècle, blending with a poetic touch inspired by Japanese ukiyo-e prints. Crafted in black ink...
About the Artist
Louis Auguste Lepère · 1849–1918
Louis-Auguste Lepère (1849–1918) was born in Paris on November 30 to the sculptor François Lepère, immersing him early in the artistic world. At age thirteen, he apprenticed in the studio of the English wood engraver Joseph Burn-Smeeton, training there from 1862 to 1867, and later attended drawing courses under Horace Lecoq de Boisbaudran at the Petite École (now École nationale supérieure des art...