Notre-Dame de Paris

From the Cleveland Museum of Art record

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.