Notre Dame de Paris (early 1860s): Art, History and Details

Notre Dame de Paris (early 1860s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Charles Soulier (French, 1840–1875).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

When the popularity of Victor Hugo’s novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame drew attention to the church, the state hired architect and preservationist Eugène Viollet-le-Duc to restore it. His renovation, which lasted from 1844 to 1864, modified the cathedral: he added the spire, gargoyles, and griffins. Charles Soulier shows us the church’s front and some of the surrounding neighborhood, bustling with carriages and new construction.

Object facts

• Title: Notre Dame de Paris
• Date: early 1860s
• Creator attribution: Charles Soulier (French, 1840–1875)
• Culture: France, 19th century
• Type: Photograph
• Technique: albumen print from glass negative
• Dimensions: Image: 38 x 30.6 cm (14 15/16 x 12 1/16 in.); Matted: 71.1 x 61 cm (28 x 24 in.)
• Collection: Photography
• Department: Photography
• Accession number: 1989.56

A detail from the museum

One of the major monuments of Paris, the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris was built in the 1100s, renovated in the 1700s, and in need of restoration by the 1800s.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• E. H. T. “The Year in Review: Selections 1989.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 77, no. 2 (February 1990): 38–78.
• Cleveland Museum of Art, Tom E Hinson. Catalogue of Photography. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1996.
• Tannenbaum, Barbara L. “Paris is Always a Good Idea: France and the Rise of Photography.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 66, no. 2 (2026): 10-11.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.