Castle Overlooking a River

Departing from his usual practice--making politically charged drawings of the slums of Paris--Maxime Lalanne made this quiet drawing as a sensitive study of the provincial French landscape. Imbuing the scene with subtlety by applying rubbed crayon to the slightly irregular surface of laid paper, he presented a Romantic view of the countryside, with attractive, mature trees, a gently meandering river, and a picturesque castle tower.

A superb draftsman, Lalanne used his sketches to work out issues for his technical manual on sketching and as the basis for illustrations in journals and books.