Esquisse pour l'escalier des Fêtes de l'Hôtel de Ville de Paris : Novembre

This esquisse is one of several preparatory works Luc-Olivier Merson produced for the festival staircase of the Paris Hôtel de Ville, depicting the month of November as part of an allegorical calendar cycle. Such cycles had deep roots in medieval and Renaissance decorative traditions, updated here for a secular republican context. The choice of November — a month of decay, bare trees, and approaching winter — provided Merson an opportunity to explore melancholy naturalism within a formal decorative programme. The sketch documents the creative process behind one of the most ambitious civic painting projects of late nineteenth-century Paris.

Tonally cool and subdued, the sketch uses muted greens, browns, and greys to evoke the bleakness of late autumn. Figures or allegorical forms are loosely blocked in, the composition balanced between narrative clarity and the gestural freedom expected of preparatory oil studies.