Untitled [View of the Seine and the Ile de la Cité]

Eugène Atget

1899

A quiet view of the Seine and the Île de la Cité photographed by Eugène Atget as an albumen silver print in 1899, part of his effort to systematically record Paris’s streets and architecture as a visual archive.

What hits you first is the low horizon and huge, pale sky that makes the delicate iron bridge, distant church spires, and tiny figures feel small and serenely isolated, while the warm sepia tones and still water give the scene a calm, documentary clarity.

One of many images in Atget’s inventory of the city, this photograph helped establish photographic urban documentation as an artistic and historical practice and influenced later documentary and modern photographers.

Palette

Art Terms

Albumen silver print Architecture Cityscape Documentary photography Photography Street photography

Exhibitions

French Photographs: Daguerre to Atget

1945

Photographs Before Surrealism

1968

The Work of Atget: The Art of Old Paris

1982

The Work of Atget: Old France

1981