We have 4 of these drawing of different places. Found them in my moms side of family along with things from the 1800(late).
Didn't know if the are rare, maybe print of original.
Any information would be great.
Thanks
Rick
The Hotel de Sens has long been a popular subject for sketches. That couldn’t be a view of it from 1977 since (although the building itself was restored in 1930 and features such as the cast iron lampposts were retained) the surroundings and adjacent buildings were subsequently redeveloped. This is what it looks like now:
Although your sketch shows the hotel as it might have looked in 1877, I suspect the artist was working from one of the many views of it from older contemporary illustrations and the sketch was made in 1977, but not 'from life'.
The artist’s signature appears to be “Hasckel”, which doesn’t throw up any possibilities. If you Google for sketches of the Hotel de Sens you will find them by the dozen and – although you may have an original sketch – I don’t think it’s by anyone of note; and (not to put too fine a point on it) isn’t of high artistic merit compared to other sketches you will find.
Thanks for the additional pics. They don’t lead me to a known artist.
While the buildings are identified on three of the sketches, one is simply titled “Paris”. Anyone who knows Paris or has an interest in its architecture would know that’s the Conciergerie on the Île de la Cité… the old prison part of the former royal Palais de la Cité. Also, It’s now clear from the dates on some of the pictures (such as 4/20/77) that the artist is using a month/day/year format which is not usual in Europe and suggests the artist is probably American or was brought up in America.
There appear to be cars (automobiles) driving along the front of and parked to the right of the Conciergerie, so that would rule out the ‘77’ date being 1877. It has to be 1977, although the view might be taken from an earlier illustration (but not from 1877).
The signature is now clearer and appears to be ‘HAECKEL’ rather than ‘HASCKEL’. Compare the letters on the title for the sketch of St. Etienne du Mont. Although all the letters are capitalised (apart from the preposition ‘du’) the artist appears to use different forms for both the letter ‘S’ and ‘E’ according to whether they are at the beginning of a word or not.
My conclusion would be modern amateur artist of no particular repute and probably an American visiting Paris in 1977.