Le Pont Saint-Michel, plate twelve from Le Long de la Seine et des Boulevards

Art Historical Context

Step into the bustling heart of late 19th-century Paris *Le Pont Saint-Michel*, twelve from Louis Auguste Lep's evocative series *Le Long de Seine et des Boulev*. Created in 1890 and published in 1910 this wood engraving captures the Pont Saint-Michel bridge spanning the Seine, a vital artery of Parisian life linking the Île de la Cité to the Left Bank. Lepère, a master French engraver and illustrator, immortalized the city's vibrant boulevards and waterways during the Belle Époque, a time of urban renewal under Haussmann's grand designs. Rendered in crisp black lines on luxurious cream Japanese tissue—a lightweight, absorbent paper favored for its ability to hold fine details—this intimate print (image 12.1 × 8.2 cm) showcases Lepère's virtuosic wood engraving technique. Unlike earlier woodcuts, engraving on end-grain boxwood allowed for the precision of pen-like strokes, evoking the immediacy of on-site sketches while achieving remarkable tonal depth through cross-hatching and texture. Housed in the Art Institute of Chicago's Prints and Drawings Department, this work highlights Lepère's role in elevating wood engraving as a fine art, bridging illustration and printmaking. It invites viewers to linger over the bridge's architectural grace amid the flow of everyday Parisians, offering a window into a romanticized yet authentic urban tableau.

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...