Partie de la Cite de Paris vers la fin du XVII siècle, (Part of the City of Paris in the late seventeenth century)

Meryon left the Navy in 1846 to take up painting. He soon abandoned this for etching after he discovered he was partially colour-blind. He suffered from mental illness from 1858 and died in an asylum at the age of 47. This work, showing the left bank of the Seine between pont Notre Dame and the pont au Change, was printed by Delâtre. Delâtre is the only person Whistler trusted to print his plates, and it was Delâtre who printed Whistler’s first series of etchings 'Douze Eaux-Fortes d'après Nature' (Twelve Etchings from Nature) in 1858.