Sky Study, Paris (1856–57): Art, History and Details

Sky Study, Paris (1856–57) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Charles Marville (French, 1813–1879).

The work and its context

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

This view frames the city so that the dome of the chapel of Les Invalides—a retirement home and hospital for military veterans—dominates the skyline. In the 1850s, the light-sensitive coatings for photographic plates were incapable of properly exposing both earth and the sky in a single shot. Marville here set his camera to capture the dramatic sky and clouds, which meant that the city below, for the most part, became a dark mass of undifferentiated buildings. The scale, drama, and majesty of this natural spectacle overwhelm human achievements.

Object facts

• Title: Sky Study, Paris
• Date: 1856–57
• Creator attribution: Charles Marville (French, 1813–1879)
• Culture: France, 19th century
• Type: Photograph
• Technique: albumen print from wet collodion negative
• Dimensions: Image: 15.3 x 21.4 cm (6 x 8 7/16 in.); Matted: 40.6 x 50.8 cm (16 x 20 in.)
• Collection: Photography
• Department: Photography
• Accession number: 1988.191

A detail from the museum

Thirty years before the construction of the Eiffel Tower, Charles Marville made a series of views of the skies over Paris, some from various rooftops and others from his apartment window.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Cleveland Museum of Art, Tom E Hinson. Catalogue of Photography. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1996.

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.