Esquisse pour la mairie de Vanves. Vue de Vanves avec fort de Vanves

Esquisse pour la mairie de Vanves: Vue de Vanves avec fort de Vanves shows the town of Vanves with its fort visible — the Fort de Vanves, built as part of the defensive ring around Paris in the 1840s. Including the fort in the townscape gives the civic decoration a note of military and patriotic pride consistent with Third Republic values. Schmitt's Vanves commission required multiple views of the commune from different angles, and these sketches trace the artist's systematic reconnaissance of the site.

Schmitt handles this wider view with the same broad, summary approach as his other preparatory sketches. The fort reads as a simplified architectural mass in the middle distance. Sky and foreground are indicated with quick, economic brushwork.