Paris, Ile St. Louis

Max Pollak

For this color aquatint Pollak chose a view of the point of the Ile St. Louis, the Place Louis Aragon, and looks across the Seine to the Ile de la Cité, the Quai aux Fleurs and the Notre-Dame Cathedral rising in the distance. Parisians fish from the bank and rowboats. In the upper left are some of the stones that create the curve of the Pont Louis-Philippe which connects the island to the Right Bank.

The Ile St. Louis, located in the 4th arrondissement, is one of two natural islands within the city limits, located on the Seine. Once used for grazing cattle, it was transformed into an urban area under the reigns of King Henry the IV and Louis the XIII, eventually transforming into a coveted upper-class district and now one of the best preserved 17th century areas in Paris.

The island’s buildings are for the most part townhouses built for members of the rich middle class, many of them officials who worked for Louis XIV. Since those times, the island has had many illustrious residents such as the poet Baudelaire, physicist Marie Curie and Voltaire.

In the 1920s and 30s it was a favorite haunt of both French and ex-pat artists, jazz musicians, and writers, including Hemingway. Ile-Saint-Louis continues to be a very sought-after and fashionable place to live, attracting Georges Pompidou, the late president of France as well as the politician Roland Dumas and many peforming arts notables.