EUGÈNE ATGET (1857-1927)

This mysterious photograph of steps apparently leading nowhere is among the first that Atget made in the Parc de St. Cloud, where he returned to photograph several times over the course of his career (see also Lot 269). There has been considerable speculation about his picture making motives which are often thought to be too personal, and idiosyncratic to be useful as documents. But this picture does record, with a poignant attention to detail, not only the steps that once led to the Château de St. Cloud which burned down in the Prussian War in 1870, but the forlorn shoe scraper in the lower foreground, idle for decades.