Skip to main content
Image scanned from a transparency and color-corrected by Ed Pollard-2008.
Pont Neuf
Image scanned from a transparency and color-corrected by Ed Pollard-2008.
Image scanned from a transparency and color-corrected by Ed Pollard-2008.

Pont Neuf

Artist Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927)
CultureFrench
Date1902-1903
MediumAlbumen print
DimensionsOverall, Image: 8 5/8 × 6 5/8 in. (21.9 × 16.8 cm)
Overall, Support: 9 15/16 × 8 in. (25.2 × 20.3 cm)
Overall, Mat: 20 × 16 in. (50.8 × 40.6 cm)
Overall, Frame (estimated): 21 1/4 × 17 1/4 × 1 1/4 in. (54 × 43.8 × 3.2 cm)
InscribedMounted on board, verso of board: Blue ink stamp; Photo E. Atget; Collection Berenice Abbott; 1 W 67th St.; Copyright; In pencil: #4654; Pont Neuf; Lower right in pencil: MOMA Dupe 2002; SMM dupl BLM 12/17/75;
Credit LineGift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. by exchange
Object number2002.5.1
On View
Chrysler Museum of Art, Gallery 228
DescriptionThis is a vintage albumen print of a man in black clothing on a bridge in Paris, France. A curving structure is on the left, and a large building in the background on the right.

Label TextEugène Atget French, 1857–1927 Pont Neuf, 1902–3 Albumen print Despite its name, Pont Neuf (new bridge) is the oldest bridge in Paris. It opened in 1604 and remains a popular subject for sketch artists and painters to this day. Eugène Atget’s photograph conveys the impressive massing of the bridge tower, the ramps and stairs to the water, and the pictorial quality of the buildings reflected in the water. In the foreground is a gauge to measure the water’s depth. Within seven or eight years of this photograph, the Seine would surmount this marker in the worst flooding of the century. Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. by Exchange 2002.5.1 ProvenanceEugene Atget; Berenice Abbott and Julian Levy, 1927-1968; sold to Museum of Modern Art, 1968-2002; Chrysler Museum of Art purchase, Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. by Exchange, 2002. Exhibition History"New Frames of Reference: Early French Photographers at Home and Abroad," Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Va, gallery 228, September 5, 2024 - February 16, 2025. "Twilight Visions: Surrealism, Photography, and Paris," The Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Nashville, TN, September 10, 2009 - January 3, 2010; International Center of Photography, New York, NY, January 29 - May 9, 2010; the Telfair Museum of Art, Savannah, GA, June 10 - October 10, 2010.Published ReferencesJohn Szarkowski and Maria Morris Hambourg, _The Work Of Atget, Volume II: The Art of Old Paris_ (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1982), 159, fig. 8. ISBN: 0-87070-212-2 John Szarkowski, _Atget_ (New York: Museum of Modern Art/Callaway, 2000), 89, pl. 34. ISBN: 0-87070-094-4 Chrysler Museum, "Chrysler Museum of Art Acquires Rare Atget Photographs," http://news.amn.org/amn_home.jsp, Art Museum Network News, October 18, 2002: http://news.amn.org/press.jsp?id=1105. Jeff Harrison, _Collecting with Vision: Treasures From the Chrysler Museum of Art_ (London: D. Giles Ltd., 2007), 108, fig. 129. ISBN: 978-0-940744-72-1