Public collection via the Cleveland Museum of Art
AT-00000358Rue de la Montagne-Sainte-Geneviève
About the Artwork
Eugène Atget became a photographer in the 1890s. His goal, like that of Charles Marville decades before, was to document the old buildings and streets of Paris before they were demolished. This narrow street, the site of the founding of the University of Paris in 1112, ends in a church built in the 1600s. Atget sold his photographs not as art but as “documents for artists,” similar in purpose to the nude studies other photographers made for use by painters. That may be why he photographed early in the morning, when a normally bustling street like this one was empty.
Inscriptions
Written in pencil on verso: "EA 8794-2"; "Rue de la Montagne-Sainte-Geneviève"
Exhibition history
France in the Time of Manet and Morisot. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (May 10-August 23, 2026).
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 7, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Eugène Atget (French, 1857–1927)
- Date
- 1898
- Medium
- albumen print, gold toned
- Dimensions
- Image: 22 x 17.4 cm (8 11/16 x 6 7/8 in.); Matted: 45.7 x 35.6 cm (18 x 14 in.)
- Type
- Photograph
- Classification
- Photograph
- Department
- Photography
- Credit line
- John L. Severance Fund
- Accession no.
- 1985.115
More by Jean-Eugène-Auguste Atget in museum collections
Open-access museum record · AT-00000358
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