Rectangular watercolor in landscape format depicting the frigidarium of the Gallo-Roman baths. Front view photography.

Watercolour of the Palais des Thermes, Cl. 23937 © GrandPalaisRmn / Michel Urtado

Watercolour of the Palais des Thermes

By Victor-Jean Nicolle (1754–1826)

Description

Not on display

19th century (circa 1820)

This drawing, signed by Jean-Victor Nicolle, shows the interior of the cold room of the Gallo-Roman baths before the 19th-century modifications to create the Musée de Cluny.

This small drawing by an artist experienced in architectural views depicts the interior of the frigidarium, seen from the west, at a time in history when appreciation for Antiquity and the Middle Ages was emerging and becoming established.

It shows what the Great Hall was like before its western wall was broken through to make an "opening made in a wall, of which [Albert Lenoir] must not compromise its solidity, [which] establishes connection between the two monuments the place of which has been so skilfully chosen that today, when time has erased the trace of the indispensable connections, one is tempted to wonder whether these two monuments have not been joined together since the 15th century.

This historical period, around the 1820s, is the least documented in the history of the site and coincides with the disappearance of the gable roof in Godde's construction, after he had the soil removed from the suspended garden that had been established in the Middle Ages on the vault of the frigidarium.

Inside the Palais des Thermes, the only Roman monument in Paris, located on rue de la Harpe.

Inscription on the back: View of the Great Hall of the Palace and the Baths of Julian (referred to as the Apostate). The only remains of the Roman monuments; built in Paris and located on rue de la Harpe. V.J. Nicolle Pinxit.
 

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