The Mortuary, Paris (1854): Art, History and Details

The Mortuary, Paris (1854) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Charles Meryon (French, 1821–1868).

The work and its context

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

Charles Meryon used etching—a technique that involves drawing on a printing plate with a needle’s point—to create minutely detailed images of Paris that imaginatively present recognizable sites. This print features bateaux-lavoirs (wash boats) on the Seine River, where laundresses could purchase a spot to do their washing. The boats appealed to Meryon, who was fascinated by Paris’s gradual transformation. Since they attracted crowds of working-class women, administrators considered the boats unsightly and unhygienic, repeatedly pushing them closer to the city’s outskirts until few remained by the end of the 1800s.

Object facts

• Title: The Mortuary, Paris
• Date: 1854
• Creator attribution: Charles Meryon (French, 1821–1868)
• Culture: France, 19th century
• Type: Print
• Technique: etching and drypoint on cream laid paper
• Dimensions: Sheet: 28.8 x 24 cm (11 5/16 x 9 7/16 in.); Image: 21.2 x 18.9 cm (8 3/8 x 7 7/16 in.); Plate: 23 x 20.6 cm (9 1/16 x 8 1/8 in.)
• Collection: PR - Etching
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 1937.633

Collection credit

Gift of Leonard C. Hanna Jr.

Further reading listed by the museum

• Salsbury, Britany. Degas and the Laundress: Women, Work, and Impressionism Exh. Cat. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2023.

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.