A Ghostly Staircase

This photograph of Hôtel Cheruseau was made by Eugène Atget. There’s something so captivating about it, though I can’t put my finger on just why that is.

I love the sepia tone and the wrought iron. I looked for the hotel, but it seems to be gone!

Hôtel Cheruseau, Rue Louis en L’Ile, c. 1905–06. Eugène Atget (French, 1857–1927). Albumen print, gold toned; image: 22.1 x 17.7 cm (8 11/16 x 6 15/16 in.); matted: 45.7 x 35.6 cm (18 x 14 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Lilyan and Toby Miller 1993.88

4 thoughts on “A Ghostly Staircase”

Beautiful. The craftsmanship, process steps and time required to create such an ornate, cast iron element is incomprehensible today.

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Kimberly

1 February 2024 at 2:29 pm

It is, isn’t it? So much craftsmanship has been lost to time. When you think about how people would build things in the past and how long it took to create something really majestic, it blows your mind. The Cologne Cathedral took over 600 years to build. The people who spent their lives working on it didn’t know how long it would take but they did realize that it wouldn’t be completed in their lifetime.

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