Hotel de Ville, Paris, Antique Lithograph after Philippe Benoist, circa 1860

A broad, sunlit tinted lithograph of the Hotel de Ville, the city hall of Paris, seen at an angle across its cobbled square. The long Renaissance facade is crowded with tall arched windows, niches and pilasters, and capped by steep slate roofs, chimneys and a central belfry with a pointed roof and flagpoles. A railing with small trees lines the right wing, and the houses of the quarter close the view at either side.

The square is full of everyday Parisian life: women in bonnets and shawls, men in top hats, porters with handcarts and wheelbarrows, a dog trotting along, and a crowd gathering at the far left. Light clouds drift across a warm cream sky.

The Hotel de Ville shown here is the building that stood before the fire of 1871, when it was burned during the Paris Commune; the present city hall was rebuilt in the following years. The sheet is lettered "Paris" above and "HÔTEL DE VILLE" below, numbered 7, after a drawing by Philippe Benoist, the French lithographer whose views of Paris are among the best known of the period. It was printed by Auguste Bry at 114 rue du Bac and published by Maison Martinet, rue Vivienne and rue de Rivoli.

The technique is lithography with a cream tint stone, which gives the sky and the stonework their soft, warm tone, while white highlights pick out the clouds and the figures. The printed image is clean.

A handsome record of a lost building, this view would be at home above a sideboard or in an entrance hall, framed in a slim gilt molding with an off-white mat.

This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed.