Le Pont-au-Change vers 1784. After a drawing by Victor-Jean Nicolle. Etching. 1855. Delteil 47 I (of VI). Inscribed in pencil in the lower right corner: "Epreuve dÕessai". 12,5:23 cm. Slg./Coll.: "T.G." (mšglicherweise/possibly T. G. Arthur)

Brilliant and very fine impression of the rare first state, of which we know only two other impressions. Charles Meryon was devoted to Paris as the subject matter of his art. Beaudelaire and Victor Hugo, as Meryon and other French citizens of the mid-nineteenth century, regarded the city as the very seat of civilisation and they increasingly became concerned with the culture of its past. The artist followed this spirit with two etchings of antiquarian nature, "Le Pont-au-Change vers 1784" and "Le Pont Neuf et la Samaritaine de dessous la 1er arche du Pont-au-Change". Both show eighteenth century views after drawings by Victor-Jean Nicolle (1754-1826). "The remarkable lucidity of his images, so striking in their faithfulness to nature, are filled with mystery and tension. ... a spirit that would continue later in the art of Bresdin, Redon and Ensor and extend into the works of the surrealists in our century." (J. D. Burke, Charles Meryon, 1974, p.10.).