Issy-les-Moulineaux, chantier pour la construction du métro

Issy-les-Moulineaux, chantier pour la construction du métro (Issy-les-Moulineaux, Construction Site for the Métro), dated around 1900 and held in the Musée de l'Hôtel-Dieu, depicts the construction of the Paris Métro during its most intensive early phase. The Paris Métropolitain opened its first line in July 1900 for the Exposition Universelle, and the construction of its southern extension through Issy-les-Moulineaux (which would become line 12) was among the major civil engineering projects of the period. For Luce, a painter fascinated by urban construction and industrial labor, the Métro building sites were an ideal subject: they combined the drama of large-scale earthworks, the presence of hundreds of workers, exposed underground infrastructure, and the transformation of familiar streetscapes. His multiple paintings of Métro construction constitute a unique visual record of this defining moment in Paris's urban history. The Issy-les-Moulineaux site, just south of central Paris, was in an area of mixed residential and light-industrial character, consistent with Luce's preference for working-class urban environments.

The construction site is handled with the energetic, directional brushwork Luce developed for his industrial subjects — excavated earth, timber shoring, construction equipment, and crowds of workers rendered through bold, purposeful strokes. The disrupted street surface and excavated trench create a dramatically irregular compositional structure.