New Caledonia: Large native hut on the road from Balade to Puebo, 1845
1863
Medium
Etching on laid paper.
Dimensions
plate: 5 3/8 x 9 3/4 in. (13.7 x 24.8 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Rogers Fund, 1917
Accession Number
17.78.33
Tags
Art Historical Context
Charles Meryon’s 1863 etching depicts a large indigenous hut along the road from Balade tobo in New Caled, a scene dated to 1845. Created on laid paper, the compact plate captures human figures, thatched architecture, a winding road, and surrounding hills in a quiet Pacific landscape. Meryon a French printmaker renowned for his precise and atmospheric etchings, brought the same meticulous line work seen in his famous Paris views to this distant subject. Etching allowed him to incise fine details into a metal plate with acid, producing rich textures in the hut’s roof, the rugged terrain, and t...
About the Artist
Charles Meryon · 1821–1868
Charles Meryon, born on November 23, 1821, in Paris, was the illegitimate son of English physician Dr. Charles Lewis Meryon and dancer Pierre-Narcisse Chaspoux (stage name Narcisse Gentil) at the Paris Opéra. His half-sister Fanny, from his mother's prior relationship with Viscount Lowther, remained in contact after their mother's death in 1838. Raised partly outside Paris before attending Pension...