Grande Salle du Conseil d'Etat

Charles Soulier

May 1871 · Albumen silver print from glass negative · Photographs

Soulier's photograph shows the charred remains of the once lavish audience hall of the Council of State in the Palais d'Orsay, a building begun by Napoleon I, completed in 1840 under King Louis-Philippe, and burned by the Communards on May 23, 1871. In the last years of the nineteenth century, these ruins were replaced by a new railway station, the Gare d'Orsay, which, in turn, was transformed in the 1980s into the Musée d'Orsay, the French national museum for art made between 1848 and 1914.

Artist

Charles Soulier

Date

May 1871

Medium

Albumen silver print from glass negative

Department

Photographs

Credit line

Gift of Paula and Robert Hershkowitz, in memory of Sam Wagstaff, 2009