The Pont-Neuf
Medium
Etching on cream wove paper
Dimensions
Image: 17.2 × 31 cm (6 13/16 × 12 1/4 in.); Plate: 20.9 × 32 cm (8 1/4 × 12 5/8 in.); Sheet: 24 × 34.1 cm (9 1/2 × 13 7/16 in.)
Classification
etching
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
46322
Art Historical Context
Louis Auguste Lepère's *The Pont-Neuf* (1901) captures the timeless allure of Paris's oldest standing bridge, the iconic Pont-Neuf spanning the Seine River. As a master French printmaker and illustrator active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries,ère was renowned for his evocative etchings of urban life, blending Realism with a poetic sensitivity to light and atmosphere. This work, housed in the Art of Chicago's Prints and department, reflects the Belle Époque era's fascination with the city's evolving landscape, where historic structures like the Pont-Neuf stood as symbols of continuity ...
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...