Description:

signed and dated lower right: Bombled 1899
pen and ink and watercolour on card
478 x 598 mm

Provenance:

Private collection, Paris

Literature

L'Exposition de Paris (1900), publiée avec la collaboration d'écrivains spéciaux et des meilleurs artistes, 3 vols, vol. 2, Paris, 1900. pp. 185-187, 192-93, no. 64 (illustrated)

Note:

This drawing of the installation of the mosaic frieze at the Grand Palais des Champs-Élysées was drawn by Bombled for the second volume of L'Exposition de Paris (1900), published by Montgredien & Cie. in 1900. The publication, initially issued in weekly instalments and then compiled into a three-volume set, sought to capitalise on the ‘Exposition Universelle’ of 1900 and the commercial opportunity afforded by the large numbers of visitors to Paris. With some 51 million attendees the exhibition became the world’s most visited to date. Bombled provided many illustrations for the publication, often depicting men at work, preparing structures, such as the Pont Alexandre II, for the forthcoming Exposition. Here, Bombled depicts the installation of the mosaic frieze on the façade of the newly built Grand Palais. To the left, M. de Vecchis, a Roman-born mosaicist and chief supervisor of the frieze’s installation, stands on the scaffold, cement in one hand, palette in the other, ready to fill the final gap in the façade’s decoration. To the right, an assistant smooths the surface of the newly installed mosaic tiles.

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