Hotel de Ville, Paris, Antique Steel Engraving after Thomas Allom, circa 1860

A detailed steel engraving of the Hotel de Ville in Paris, seen at an angle across the square in front of it. The richly ornamented Renaissance facade, with its rows of arched windows, statues in niches and steep pavilion roofs, stretches from left to right, crowned by a central belfry flying a flag. At far left a tall old house with a projecting shop front frames the view, and the houses of the quarter recede behind.

The square is filled with a military parade: long lines of soldiers stand in formation before the building, officers ride up and down, and a carriage drawn by white horses passes at left. In the foreground ordinary Parisians look on, among them a man bending to tend a shoe for a customer, two women seated on the ground at right, and children and dogs running about.

The building shown is the Hotel de Ville as it stood before it was burned during the Commune in 1871. The plate was drawn by Thomas Allom, the English architect and topographical artist whose views of France and the Continent were widely engraved, and engraved by J. Saddler. It carries the imprint of The London Printing and Publishing Company, Limited.

The technique is steel engraving, with the carved ornament of the facade rendered in remarkable detail and the sky in fine, even ruled lines. The script title sits in the lower margin. The printed image is clean.

Rich in incident, this is a print to study at close range; it would sit well in a hallway or a study, in a dark wood frame with a narrow gilt slip.

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