Page:The Etchings of Charles Meryon.djvu/33

 for fifty copies of these additional plates at two francs each, adding that such help as he would get from the Ministry was almost his only assistance in view of the indifference of the public. Rue des Toiles à Bourges (plate 40) is a very fine etching, comparable to some of the rather similar subjects in the Paris set, notably Tourelle, Rue de la Tixéranderie. The early impressions of it are very beautifully printed. The British Museum has recently acquired a probably unique first state, earlier than any described by M. Delteil, printed before the plate had been reduced to its ultimate dimensions. The third Bourges etching, Ancienne habitation à Bourges (plate 41) was added much later, in 1860, and is in the style of some of the late Paris etchings, but not so good. The only other etchings that date from the period of the "Eaux-Fortes sur Paris" are the Verses to Eugène Bléry (two different plates with the same contents, D. 88, 89) and the fine Entrée du Couvent des Capucins à Athènes (plate 42), both etched in 1854. Though Meryon had drawn in early youth the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates which was then partly embedded in the buildings of the French Capuchins at Athens, though it was afterwards detached from the wall, his etching is copied from one of the plates by J. P. Le Bas in J. D. Le Roy's "Ruines des plus beaux monuments de la Grèce," Paris, 1758.

It was about this time that Meryon began to etch plates of antiquarian interest from old drawings or prints. Though they were commissioned for illustrations, it is evident, among other things from a letter of Baudelaire's written in 1860, that Meryon himself developed a rather tiresome habit of research, both pedantic and eccentric in its methods. One of the best of these derivative etchings, the Salle des Pas-Perdus (plate 35), after Ducerceau, dates from 1855, and Le Pont-Neuf et la Samaritaine (plate 33) and Le Pont-au-Change vers 1784 (plate 34) were also etched in the same year. They are fine etchings, but do not arouse the same interest as Meryon's first-hand impressions of the Paris of his own day. Le Château de Chenonceau, also after Ducerceau, and etched in a very