The Cleveland Museum of Art
Collection Online as of April 19, 2024
At the Fortifications, Porte de Versailles
1898
(French, 1849–1918)
Image: 11.9 x 23.4 cm (4 11/16 x 9 3/16 in.); Plate: 15 x 25.9 cm (5 7/8 x 10 3/16 in.); Sheet: 19 x 28.8 cm (7 1/2 x 11 5/16 in.)
Gift of Ralph King 1920.635
Catalogue raisonné: Lotz-Brissonneau 110
Location: not on view
Description
Paris underwent a dramatic redesign beginning in the mid-1800s, resulting in its distinctive appearance today but also in the displacement of residents who worked—but could not afford to live—in the city. In this print, Auguste Lepère presented the “zone,” an area on Paris’s periphery where its most economically disadvantaged and disenfranchised inhabitants lived, including some laundresses. Lepère’s image features a laundry line as the singular domestic touch within an otherwise surreal landscape, part of the city but seemingly rural. The inhabitants of the zone used open land to construct makeshift homes without modern amenities, so that they could subsist on the low wages offered by their urban employment.- ?–1920Ralph King [1855-1926], Cleveland Heights, OH, given to The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OHNovember 11, 1920–The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
- Salsbury, Britany. Degas and the Laundress: Women, Work, and Impressionism Exh. Cat. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2023. Mentioned: p. 161, no. 47
- Degas and the Laundress: Women, Work, and Impressionism. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 8, 2023-January 14, 2024).
- {{cite web|title=At the Fortifications, Porte de Versailles|url=false|author=Auguste Louis Lepère|year=1898|access-date=19 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}
Source URL:
https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1920.635