Grand Trianon, les Fosses
Eugène Atget
French, 1857–1927
1901
An albumen silver print in which Eugène Atget quietly documents the Grand Trianon’s curving stone balustrades and service passages as part of his systematic project to record Paris’s architecture and everyday fittings before they vanished.
The eye is drawn along the sweeping, moss-darkened stone walls into a shadowed arch, while bare trees and a pale, empty sky flatten the scene into a still, slightly melancholic composition.
Atget’s unsentimental, methodical photographs transformed ordinary urban and architectural details into a visual archive that helped define documentary photography and later influenced modern artists and the Surrealists.
Medium
Albumen silver print
Dimensions
Approx. 7 1/16 × 8 9/16" (18 × 21.8 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Abbott-Levy Collection. Acquired through the generosity of Shirley C. Burden, and Family of Man Fund
Accession
1.1969.33
Palette
Exhibitions
