The Dawn, plate fourteen from Le Long de la Seine et des Boulevards
1890, published 1910
Medium
Wood engraving in black on cream Japanese tissue
Dimensions
Image: 10.1 × 12.1 cm (4 × 4 13/16 in.); Sheet: 23 × 20.8 cm (9 1/16 × 8 1/4 in.)
Classification
wood engraving
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
79207
Art Historical Context
**The Dawn**, plate fourteen from Louis Auguste Lepère's series *Le Long de Seine et des Boulev*, captures the quiet magic of early morning in late 19th-century Paris Created in 1890 published in 1910 this wood engraving depicts a serene riverside or boulevard scene bathed in the soft light of dawn, evoking bustling yet intimate urban life along the Seine during the Belle Époque. Lepère, a master French printmaker (1849–1918), was renowned for his meticulous urban vignettes, blending realism with poetic atmosphere to document Haussmann's transformed cityscape. Printed in black ink on luxuriou...
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...