Rue Saint-Jacques
1864–before February 1867
Medium
albumen print
Dimensions
image/sheet: 30.6 × 27 cm (12 1/16 × 10 5/8 in.) mount: 60 × 42.6 cm (23 5/8 × 16 3/4 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Robert B. Menschel Fund
Accession Number
2003.17.1
Art Historical Context
Step into the bustling heart of 19th-century Paris with Marville's *Rue Saint-Jacques*, an evocative albumen print created between 1864 and February 1867. 30.6 × 27 cm image captures a narrow street scene in the Latin Quarter, alive with the grit and charm of old Paris—cobblestones, shadowed facades, and everyday life frozen in time. Marville, the city's official photographer under Napoleon III masterfully documented these vanishing urban vignettes, offering us a window into a world on the cusp of transformation. During Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann's sweeping renovations, which razed mediev...
About the Artist
Charles Marville · 1813–1879
**Charles Marville**, born Charles François Bossu on July 17, 1813, in Paris, adopted his professional pseudonym around 1832 to avoid the stigma of "bossu," meaning hunchback in French. Trained as a painter, engraver, and illustrator, he spent nearly two decades producing woodblock illustrations for books and magazines before embracing photography around 1850. His transition coincided with the med...