Church of Notre-Dame, Dijon

Church of Notre-Dame, Dijon from 1835 by David Roberts documents the remarkable medieval church in the Burgundian capital, a building celebrated for its unusual facade with three superimposed galleries. Roberts traveled extensively across Europe making oil sketches and watercolor studies of notable architecture that he later worked up into exhibition paintings. Dijon's Notre-Dame, with its distinctive gargoyles and blind arcade, gave Roberts a subject rich in medieval character quite different from the Gothic cathedrals he more typically depicted. Roberts rose from working-class origins in Edinburgh to become one of Britain's most celebrated topographical painters, exhibiting regularly at the Royal Academy and achieving international fame through his lithographic publications of Middle Eastern travels. The Burgundian light and the building's robust Romanesque-Gothic hybrid character are rendered with his characteristic combination of documentary precision and atmospheric warmth.

The church facade is rendered with Roberts's precise architectural technique, the elaborate Gothic sculpture and tracery captured with documentary thoroughness.