Eugène Atget spent the early part of his photographic career making pictures of subjects and scenes intended to appeal to artists as models and reference material for their work—the likely purpose of this photograph. As Atget’s career progressed, he became best known for his pictures of Old Paris—surviving elements of historic architecture and evidence of centuries-old traditions that remained despite the transformations that reshaped Paris into a modern city beginning in the second half of the 19th century.