Grottes d’Osselles: La chaire à prêcher (Osselles Caves: The Pulpit)

Grottes d’Osselles: La chaire à prêcher (Osselles Caves: The Pulpit)

1829
Nicolas Toussaint Charlet
French, 1792–1845
Lithograph on chine collé
12 7/16 x 19 1/8 in. (31.6 x 48.5 cm)

The French lithographer Nicolas Toussaint Charlet studied in the atelier of Baron Gros and collaborated with Théodore Géricault. These are two of his topographical illustrations commissioned for the publication Voyages pittoresques et romantiques dans l’ancienne France, a survey of the landscapes of the French provinces. Such topographical lithography enjoyed great popularity in both France and England during the first half of the nineteenth century. Here Charlet represents grottos from the Osselles region in eastern France. Their winding, cavernous interiors pull the eye inward—into the imagined depths of the landscape.

2012.99.3.3
Yale University Art Gallery, Gift of Renée and Geoffrey Hartman, Ph.D. 1953