Getty Museum

Ancien Couvent, Avenue de l'Observatoire (Old Convent, avenue d l'Observatoire)

Date

1923

Medium

Albumen silver print

Culture

French

Department

Photographs

Institution

Getty Museum

Object ID

a2cc9a17-af07-42b6-bf00-a508591e14e7

> Eugène Atget's inscription on the back of this image indicates that this building was once a convent and was located on the avenue that leads from the old observatory to the Luxembourg Gardens. More precise identification of it seems impossible, as the area once had several convents. From the elaborate treatment given to the chimney on the left end, the establishment was evidently well endowed. In Atget's photograph the structure seems nearly abandoned, its melancholy heightened by the bare branches of the trees. However, an open dormer window suggests that the place was still in use for some purpose. > > With the high, weather-stained wall separating the viewer from the brooding building, and the ladder leaning against the streetlight, the picture suggests an episode in a novel, maybe one in which a nun is abducted. This invests the image with a romance that its maker may not have intended but is perhaps a forgivable sin of interpretation with a photograph as atmospheric as this one. In the 1920s a sale of a large body of Atget's work had made him financially secure, and his views of this period were made more to please himself than had been the case in earlier years, when he concentrated on making simple documents for sale. His work became more concerned with the effects of weather, season, and mood. > > Although this print once belonged to Maurice Utrillo (1883-1955), who occasionally used Atget's images as direct sources for his paintings (see [86.XM.23](https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/33769/eugene-atget-hotel-scipion-sardini-rue-scipion-french-march-1925/) and [90.XM.64.39](https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/63474/eugene-atget-fete-vaugirard-street-fair-and-kiosk-french-1925/)), there is no known work that is modeled on this photograph. > > Originally published in *Eugène Atget*, In Focus: Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum by Gordon Baldwin (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2000), 72. ©2000, J. Paul Getty Trust.

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