Turret, Rue de l'École de Médecine, 22, Paris (Tourelle, rue de l'École de Médecine, 22, Paris)

Of the landscape views in which Meryon specialized, those of his native Paris are generally considered to be his best. Many Paris neighborhoods that had remained medieval in aspect, such as the one where Meryon himself lived, were destroyed or changed beyond recognition in the 1850s and 1860s. In this etching, the workers seen on the roof at right look up toward an ominous sky—which in earlier states was occupied by allegories of Truth, Justice, and Oppressed Innocence—and seem to bow under its weight. Even without those allegorical figures, the etching nevertheless retains an eerie sense of urban oppression.