The Vampire of Notre-Dame, plate nine from Le Long de la Seine et des Boulevards
1890, published 1910
Medium
Wood engraving in black on cream Japanese tissue
Dimensions
Image: 13.2 × 12.3 cm (5 1/4 × 4 7/8 in.); Sheet: 23.1 × 21 cm (9 1/8 × 8 5/16 in.)
Classification
wood engraving
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
79197
Art Historical Context
In the shadowy glow of fin-de-siècle Paris, Auguste Lepère's *The Vampire of Notre-Dame (1890, published 1910) captures the allure of the iconic cathedral along the Seine. As plate nine from the series *Le Long de la et des Boulevards this wood engraving evokes the bustling yet mysterious boulevards of Haussmann's transformed city, blending everyday urban life with a touch of the macabre—hinted at in its evocative title, perhaps alluding to nocturnal figures or the cathedral's looming presence at dusk. Lepère, a master of the French wood engraving revival, crafted this intricate image with fi...
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...