Cleveland Museum of Art

Notre-Dame de Paris

Luc-Olivier Merson

Date

c. 1881

Medium

pen and black ink, brush and black wash, white gouache and graphite on paper

Culture

France, 19th century

Department

Drawings

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

Victor Hugo's celebrated 1831 novel Notre-Dame de Paris tells the story of Quasimodo, a disfigured orphan raised by the archdeacon of Notre Dame cathedral in Paris. Hugo's novel became an important influence on many artists and helped to define a poetic view of the medieval period and of Gothic architecture that lasted well into the second half of the century. This drawing by Luc-Olivier Merson was reproduced as a wood engraving in an illustrated tribute to Hugo published in 1881. After creating this drawing, Luc-Olivier Merson went on to illustrate an important 1889 edition of Notre-Dame de Paris , one of the major projects of his career.

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