The Lady Chapel, Church of St Pierre, Caen

David Roberts's Lady Chapel, Church of Saint Pierre, Caen from 1832 captures the Gothic architecture of one of Normandy's finest medieval churches during his extensive tours of French medieval buildings in the early 1830s. Roberts was the foremost architectural painter of his generation, combining topographical accuracy with theatrical lighting effects that gave medieval interiors a quality of sublime grandeur. His French church studies brought British audiences their most detailed and artistically sophisticated documentation of Norman Gothic architecture at a time when medieval studies were transforming architectural history and the conservation of historic buildings. The 1832 date places this in the early phase of his systematic documentation of European architectural heritage before his transformative Egyptian and Near Eastern travels of 1838-39.

The church interior is rendered with Roberts's precise architectural draftsmanship, the Gothic vaulting and tracery captured with both documentary accuracy and atmospheric effect.