Le Petit-Pont, après l'incendie de 1718

This 1718 painting of the Petit-Pont after the fire of that year is among the most historically specific of Oudry's surviving works: it documents an actual event—the destruction by fire of the medieval bridge—as witnessed in contemporary Paris. The Petit-Pont, one of the oldest crossing points over the Seine near the Île de la Cité, had a history of fire, and the 1718 blaze was a significant urban event. Oudry's decision to document it places him briefly within the tradition of urban topography and disaster documentation that ran alongside the mainstream of decorative painting in eighteenth-century France. The Musée Carnavalet, Paris's museum of city history, holds the work as part of its comprehensive collection of visual documents of Parisian life. This painting is remarkable as evidence that Oudry, otherwise known as a specialist in animals, hunts, and fables, was also responsive to the contemporary world around him.

Documenting a fire aftermath required Oudry to handle burnt and damaged architecture, smoke-stained stonework, and the debris of destruction—subjects quite different from his usual animal work. His approach combined the topographic accuracy of view painting with the atmospheric handling appropriate to the smoke-heavy aftermath of a major fire. The Seine and its reflections provided a horizontal counterpoint to the vertical drama of the damaged bridge.