The Seine River at the Mouth of the Canal St. Martin

Scenes of working-class neighborhoods, factories, and industry were elevated in status by avant-garde painters and printmakers in the last quarter of the 19th century. Depictions of billowing smokestacks and blue-collar workers coincided with images of Paris’s grand boulevards and well-to-do residents. Auguste Lepère specialized in printmaking, and his favorite subject was Paris and its inhabitants. The Seine River at the Mouth of the Canal St. Martin positions the viewer among the barge workers on the docks of the Seine River, with the dark silhouette of Notre Dame Cathedral just visible through the smoky haze on the horizon.