CHARLES MERYON
1821 – 1868
Le Pont au Change, Paris
Delteil 34 v/xii; Wright 34 v/xii; Schneiderman v/xii
157 x 337 mm
Original etching, 1854.
One of the Eaux-fortes sur Paris.
Fifth state, with the cursive signature and date added.
First issue.
Printed by Meryon himself on antique laid paper.
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Meryon was at the forefront of the mid-19th century French Etching Revival.
He began his career in the French navy before taking up art full time.
Being colour-blind, he found in etching a medium where he could express himself
through line and tone.
He is best known, and collected, for his series of 22 etchings of Paris, L’Eaux-fortes sur Paris,
etched through the 1850’s, which won acclaim when exhibited at the Paris Salons.
Baudelaire, poet and art critic admired in them the ‘poetry of old Paris’ – they were etched as
Baron Haussman was demolishing the maze of medieval streets to build the boulevards
which still distinguish Paris today.
Baudelaire also recognized Meryon’s refinement and sureness of drawing which reminded him of
the “masters of the past”.
Meryon was particularly influenced by the Dutch 17th century etcher Reynier Nooms, who was,
and is, known as Reynier Zeeman (Dutch for seaman) who, coincidentally, also both made a similar
move from sailor to etcher and produced a series of etchings of the Paris of his own day.
The plate for the Pont au Change, begun in 1854, went through twelve different ‘states’,
as Meryon changed his mind about compositional details.
In 1859, after suffering from depression and spending some months in the psychiatric hospital
at Charenton, where ultimately he would end his days, Meryon changed the sky, removing the air
balloon and replacing it with flights of albatrosses and ducks, which in their turn were subsequently
removed.
The impression offered here is prior to his illness, and the ‘uplifiting’ air balloon is etched with
its name L’Espérence (Hope).
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