Lock of the Canal Saint-Martin
1890, published 1910
Medium
Wood engraving in black on cream Japanese tissue
Dimensions
Image: 8.9 × 10.4 cm (3 9/16 × 4 1/8 in.); Sheet: 19.4 × 22.8 cm (7 11/16 × 9 in.)
Classification
wood engraving
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
128528
Art Historical Context
Step into the bustling heart of 19th-century Paris with Auguste Lepère's *Lock of the Canal Saint-Martin (1890, published 1910). This wood engraving captures a lock along the Canal Saint-Martin, a vital waterway engineered in the early 1800s to supply fresh water and transport goods through the city's industrial underbelly. Lepère, leading French printmaker of his era, masterfully documented everyday urban life, blending meticulous detail with a nod to Impressionist interests in light and atmosphere—though rendered in the precise lines of engraving rather than paint. Crafted as a wood engravi...
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...