This photograph depicts an artificial waterfall in the Bois de Boulogne, the vast royal hunting park at the western edge of Paris that was transformed in the 1850s into an expansive public park for bourgeois recreation—weekend promenades, an effortless paddle on a calm lake, luncheon or tea at an outdoor pavilion, and communing with nature (tamed by the landscape designer). After documenting the new park, Charles Marville was later commissioned by the City of Paris to create an exhaustive photographic record of both the older parts of the city that were being demolished and the modern Paris that was taking shape.