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Original fileChimeras of Notre-Dame de Paris
Quimeras Notre Dame
About This Work
Two anthropomorphic, stone creatures are carved in a seated, hunched posture on a ledge. The foreground figure has a beaked, reptilian face with an extended tongue and a muscular human torso, while the figure behind it wears a pointed cap and has its hand raised to its face in a contemplative or mournful gesture. The background shows a blurred view of a modern urban building through a decorative metal railing.
These sculptures, though often misidentified as medieval, were added during the 19th-century restoration of Notre-Dame by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, representing the Romantic and Gothic Revival obsession with the macabre and the grotesque.
Connected Texts
Eugène Viollet-le-Duc
The architect responsible for the 19th-century restoration and addition of these decorative chimeras to the cathedral's facade.
Victor Hugo
His novel 'The Hunchback of Notre-Dame' popularized the cathedral's Gothic architecture, directly influencing the mid-19th-century restoration movement.