\n\tThe artist. Acquired by Ken and Jenny Jacobson, England, after 1859 [1]; purchased by the Princeton University Art Museum, 1994.\n
\n\n\tNotes:\n
[1]. Ken and Jenny Jacobson, based in Essex, England, are dealers of nineteenth century photographs. Ken Jacobson is an alumnus of Princeton University (B.A., Chemistry, before 1970).\n
\nhttp://www.jacobsonphoto.com/about/\n
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\n\tAs the French government resolved to honor and preserve the nation’s architectural heritage in the mid-nineteenth century, the architect Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc oversaw renovations of several Romanesque and Gothic churches. He relied on the firm Monduit et Béchet to produce metalwork, including a new spire for the Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris.\n
\n\n\tMarville documented these transformations to promote Monduit et Béchet’s metalwork, creating rooftop views to show the ornamental spires in situ, as in the above photograph of Notre-Dame. When given the opportunity to stage an elegantly lit composition of the firm’s wares at London’s International Exhibition of 1862, Marville arranged a still life of figural and ornamental elements. The result looks as much like the treasury of a medieval church, where precious and holy objects were stored, as the product line of a modern foundry.\n
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