Jardin [du] Luxembourg (Luxembourg Gardens)

A tree takes center stage in this bold composition principally concerned with the depiction of pedestrian space and a Paris monument. Eugène Atget composed the photograph so that the viewer's eye is led down a path toward Marie de' Medici's seventeenth-century Palais de Luxembourg. Although the path is not occupied on this wintry day, the presence of a few gentlemen--one overlooking the River Seine, another seated on a park bench--suggest that Parisians frequently traveled along it.

During the 1600s the rich decoration of the Palais de Luxembourg had a powerful influence on French taste, especially on interior decoration. One of many former royal residences of historical significance in Paris, it saw other uses after the monarchy fell. It served as a prison during the French Revolution, and the senate assembled there during the reign of Napoleon.