St. Gatien Cathedral, Tours, Antique Steel Engraving after T. Allom, circa 1845

The west front of the Cathedral of Saint-Gatien in Tours rises almost the full height of this upright view. Its two towers, each topped by an open Renaissance lantern and a small dome, flank a richly carved Flamboyant Gothic facade with a great rose window above three deep, pinnacled portals.

Below, the square in front of the cathedral is busy. A procession of figures files toward the doors at left, while in the foreground stonemasons work among large cut blocks: one levers a stone with a long pole, another stands on a cart, and a team of heavy horses waits beside them. Part of the nave and a side chapel are seen to the right, with old houses at left.

The lettering reads Exterior of the Cathedral of St. Gatien, Tours, and credits the drawing to Thomas Allom and the engraving to W.H. Capone. No publisher's line appears on this impression. Saint-Gatien's west front, completed in the sixteenth century, is one of the finest of its kind in the Loire valley, and Allom's drawing records the square before it as a working space, with masons dressing stone at the cathedral's door.

It is a steel engraving of very fine detail, the tracery of the facade cut so closely that the stone seems almost lace-like against the plain sky. The figures and horses in the foreground are drawn with real vigor and give the monument a sense of scale.

A tall architectural subject well suited to a narrow wall, a landing or a pairing with another French cathedral view, framed in black with a white mat.

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