Esquisse pour la mairie de Vanves. Vues de Vanves avec l'église de Vanves

Esquisse pour la mairie de Vanves: Vues de Vanves avec l'église de Vanves is one of Paul Schmitt's preparatory studies for a municipal commission to decorate the town hall of Vanves, a commune south of Paris. Such municipal decoration schemes — providing painted allegories and local views for newly built or renovated mairies — were a significant source of income for academic painters in Third Republic France. Schmitt's study shows the town and its church, the kind of local-identity imagery these commissions typically required. The Petit Palais holds these preparatory sketches alongside the finished panel work.

The sketch is freely painted with broad, confident strokes suited to working out compositional ideas. The palette is naturalistic — greens, blues, ochres. Church and townscape are rendered schematically but clearly, providing the essential information needed for the final decorative panels.