Door of the Hôtel de Cluny

This drawing depicts the door of the medieval Hôtel de Cluny along with several of its details shown at half-scale. It is certainly a student exercise in architecture and is the work of either Joseph or Lucien Graf.

Joseph Graf (1869–1934), a graduate of the School of Decorative Arts, had an architectural practice in Saint-Maur-des-Fossés. His son, Lucien (1900–1987), studied at the École Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He began his career in his father’s firm and later, after his father’s death, pursued an independent career as an architect.

The large drawing of the wicket gate of the Hôtel de Cluny comes from a portion of the undifferentiated collection of the father and son, which was dispersed in a sale on February 1, 2012.

The board depicts the masonry and woodwork of the door, topped by ivy foliage on which the title "Hôtel de Cluny" is inscribed. At the bottom, it shows a series of half-scale details: the left-hand boss of the arch with profiles of the molding in various sections, as well as the ironwork. The vegetation cascading from the battlements of the street wall is known from numerous sources (paintings, photographs). The reddish-ochre color of the door, slightly tinged with pink, is a faithful representation of the paint subjected to natural aging of woodwork exposed to the south.

Both Joseph and Lucien Graf had the skill to produce such a drawing. Since the Hôtel de Cluny was under the direct supervision of the Monuments Historiques service, which oversaw its restoration, this drawing, although precise, can only be a student exercise. It would have been created in the early 1890s if by the father, or in the early 1920s if by the son.

However, it is more likely the work of the latter. The survey of a beautiful and famous piece of Gothic architecture, located just a stone’s throw from the Quai Malaquais, is indeed typical of the exercises assigned to architecture students at the Beaux-Arts, a tradition that continues to this day.