[Sculpture of Virgin and Child, Notre Dame, Paris]

Auguste Mestral

1853–1854 · Salted paper print from paper negative · Photographs

The mid-nineteenth-century's renewed interest in France's medieval past resulted in the restoration-sometimes heavy handed, sometimes imaginative-of many of the nation's most important monuments. The work on Notre Dame, which suffered deliberate damage during the Revolution and neglect in the years that followed, began in 1845 and lasted some twenty-five years. Under the direction of Viollet le Duc, new statuary was commissioned, including this sculpture of the Virgin and Child, a work by Adolphe Victor Geoffroy-Dechaume. In Mestral's photograph, which comes from the Geoffroy-Dechaume archives, the heavenly figures remain earthbound on the construction site; shortly after, they would be lifted to a central position on the west façade, above the main portal and in front of the rose window.

Artist

Auguste Mestral

Date

1853–1854

Medium

Salted paper print from paper negative

Department

Photographs

Credit line

Purchase, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Gift, through Joyce and Robert Menschel, 2000