Lock of the Canal Saint-Martin
1890, published 1910
Medium
Wood engraving in black on cream Japanese tissue
Dimensions
Image: 8.7 × 10 cm (3 7/16 × 3 15/16 in.); Sheet: 19.6 × 23.9 cm (7 3/4 × 9 7/16 in.)
Classification
wood engraving
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
61401
Art Historical Context
Louis Auguste Lepère's *Lock of the Canal Saint* (1890, published 1910) captures a serene moment along one of Paris's iconic waterways, the Canal Saint-Martin. This wood engraving depicts the lock mechanism amid the canal's industrial charm, reflecting the blend of urban engineering and everyday life in late 19th-century France. Lepère, a leading figure in the French print revival specialized in meticulous wood engravings that the atmospheric quality of Impressionism through black-and-white precision, often portraying Parisian scenes with a poetic realism. Printed in black ink on luxurious cr...
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...