Vue des Boulevard pris de la porte S. Antoine, a Paris/ Gesicht des Bollwercks von S. Antnis Thor genommen zu Paris

Title

Vue des Boulevard pris de la porte S. Antoine, a Paris/ Gesicht des Bollwercks von S. Antnis Thor genommen zu Paris

Description

Representation of a main street in Paris from the St. Antoine gate

ca. 1740

Artist

Probst (1721-1781)

Georg Balthasar Probst (1732–1801), Georg Balthasar Probst was a German artist, engraver and publisher in Augsburg, a major European publishing center in the 17th and 18th centuries. He produced architectural views of places around the world intended as vues d’optiques, which were published in various places during the last half of the 18th century, including Paris, Augsburg and London. He was also known for his portraits. Probst came from an extended family of printers, whose businesses can all be traced back to the publishing firm of Jeremias Wolff (1663-1724). After Wolff's death his firm was continued as “Wolff’s Heirs” (Haeres Jer. Wolffii) by his son-in-law Johann Balthasar Probst (1689-1750). After Probst’s death in 1750, his descendants divided the business and published under their own imprints: Johann Friedrich Probst (1721-1781), Georg Balthasar Probst (1732-1801) and Johann Michael Probst. Another part of the Wolff-Probst firm was acquired by the Augsburg publisher Johann Georg Hertel (1700-1775), whose son Georg Leopold Hertel had married a sister of the Probsts. In the next generation, Georg Mathäus Probst (d. 1788), son of Georg Balthasar Probst, also became an engraver of portraits and views.

Historical Description

Historically, Île-de-France is the heartland of France, to which names such as Francia or Francia usually referred. Since the subjugation of Syagrius by Clovis I, the area has formed, with only a brief interruption in the 7th century, a political center of the Frankish Empire of the Merovingians and Carolingians and, from the 9th century, of the West Frankish Empire, that is, of the later France. For centuries it was identical with the French crown domain, the Domaine royal. From here spread the Gothic style, which was originally the architectural style only of this region and therefore the French "royal style". From Louis XIV on, the French kings ruled from Versailles, where they created the imposing and much copied Palace of Versailles. Until the French Revolution, Île-de-France was one of the historic provinces of France. With the creation of the departments in 1789/1790, it was dissolved as an administrative unit.