Phillipe Benoist

Arc de Triomphe: Carriages and figures in the foreground.

In 1848 Louis-Napoleon Buonaparte, nephew of the Emperor
Napoleon, became the first president of the Second Republic of France, and
three years later in true Buonaparte style claimed the throne of France as his
own ruling as Napoleon III until 1870. The period of the Deuxieme Empire ushered in considerable
alterations to the infrastructure of France and transformed Paris particularly
under the vast improvement scheme of Baron George-Eugene Haussmann. Swathes of
medieval Paris were demolished to make way for Haussmann’s signature boulevards
of architecturally conformist cream buildings as well as the new stations,
theatres, markets, monuments, avenues, and sewers with parks and gardens to rival
those of London.

Throughout the Deuxieme Empire the
artist Phillipe Benoist in collaboration with numerous publishers and supported
by the most accomplished of his fellow artists, including his brother Felix,
issued views of Paris recording its metamorphosis. Acclaimed for his
draughtsmanship and traditionally working from life, Benoist would also embrace
photography, the new rival to landscape lithography. Taking advantage of its
immediate accuracy in concert with traditional skills allowed for a greater
focus on the vibrancy and fluidity of composition, achieving precis and emotive
depictions of Paris as the vanguard of progress and herald of ‘modern’ urban
living.