Phillipe Benoist

Chateau des Tuileries: Carousel side.

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.