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[Captive balloon with clock face and bell, floating above the Eiffel Tower, Paris, France] / Camille Grávis. – Vintage Wall Art

[Captive balloon with clock face and bell, floating above the Eiffel Tower, Paris, France] / Camille Grávis., [between 1880 and 1900] — historic drawing
[Captive balloon with clock face and bell, floating above the Eiffel Tower, Paris, France] / Camille Grávis., [between 1880 and 1900]. Historic drawing from the Ballooning collection.

(Originally scanned by the Library of Congress. Each image is professionally and digitally cleaned of artifacts such as color bars and extra borders prior to printing.)

Description

[Captive balloon with clock face and bell, floating above the Eiffel Tower, Paris, France] / Camille Grávis. comes to life in this historic drawing, reproduced from the original with every detail intact. It comes from the collections of the Library of Congress, scanned from the original and carefully restored.

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[Captive balloon with clock face and bell, floating above the Eiffel Tower, Paris, France] / Camille Grávis.

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A captive balloon fitted with a clock face and a bell drifts above the Eiffel Tower in this watercolor, a whimsical pairing of a tethered aircraft and the iron tower that had just risen over Paris. Camille Grávis painted it in pencil underdrawing and watercolor sometime between 1880 and 1900, and the Library of Congress catalog notes that its title was supplied by staff. The Tissandier collection, assembled around Gaston Tissandier, a French aeronaut and writer, holds much of the Library's ballooning material. Tethered balloons were a popular attraction at Paris fairs, including near the tower during the 1889 Exposition Universelle.

Created / published[between 1880 and 1900]
Medium1 drawing : watercolor over graphite underdrawing.
GenreWatercolors Color 1880-1900.
NotesTitle devised by Library staff. Tissandier collection.
SubjectsCaptive balloons--France--Paris--1880-1900. Tour Eiffel (Paris, France)--1880-1900.
SourceLibrary of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
Original scan1,046 × 1,536 px · prints to 3 × 5 in at 300 dpi
ReferenceAMZ-SOTP-HPA-108547

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