Rue de la Poissonnerie, Montivilliers, by A. Briend de Maignon, circa 1875

About this sheet

A narrow cobbled street in an old Norman town leads the eye straight to a church tower at its far end. On the left rise tall half-timbered and slate-hung houses with overhanging upper stories, shuttered windows and steep roofs with chimneys; on the right a massive stone building with a deep, sweeping roof of small tiles and heavy buttresses closes in the view. Between them, in the bright distance, the tower of the church climbs in tiers of round-arched openings to a tall octagonal spire topped by a weathercock, with a clock face set below the roof line. A few small figures stand in the sunlit street at the foot of the church, giving scale to the soaring architecture.

The view is lettered in the plate itself: "Montivilliers / Rue de la Poissonnerie" at lower right, and the artist's signature, "A. Briend de Maignon," at lower left. Montivilliers lies just inland from Le Havre in Normandy and grew up around a great medieval abbey; the Romanesque tower and spire seen here belong to its former abbey church of Notre-Dame. The Rue de la Poissonnerie, the street of the fish market, runs through the old heart of the town.

This is an original etching, drawn directly on the plate by the artist, with a crisp, descriptive line well suited to architecture: close hatching in the shaded house fronts, careful outlines of tiles and timbers, and open sky left almost bare.

Francophiles and lovers of old towns will enjoy it in an entrance hall or a reading corner, framed simply in black or dark oak.

This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed. Any framed or interior images are shown for presentation and inspiration only, unless the listing explicitly states that the item is sold framed.