Palais-Royal

1904–1905

Medium

Albumen silver print

Dimensions

21.9 × 17.9 cm

Status

In Museum Collection

Collect24 Art ID

C24-255216

> The severe elegance of this photograph of two of the arches of an arcade running along one of the sides of the garden of the Palais Royal in Paris is unusual in Eugène Atget's work. Because of its near symmetry and lack of discernible perspective, save in the foreground paving, the image seems more like an architectural elevation than a photograph. Atget probably hoped to sell it to architects who would find it useful for the information it gives about the building's proportions and details. However, the photograph is not quite balanced, as two additional flutes of the pilaster on the left are visible than of the pilaster on the right. The top edge of the photograph crops a line of balusters over each arch in such a way that they appear to be rows of beads. Very early, delicate, and shapely examples of gas lighting fixtures hang in the arches; beyond are visible the shuttered windows of one of the stores lining the arcade. > > Atget made several views of the palace, its garden, and the arcades in the early 1900s. The last were designed by the architect Victor Louis (1731-1800) for Philippe Égalité (1747-93), a cousin of Louis XVI. Égalité, in the course of the French Revolution…