Paul Paisant-duclos, Framed Drawing. Town Hall Design For Périers (manche). [circa 1870].

Original drawing. Pen, graphite, and watercolor. 46 x 33.5 cm (image size), in a frame measuring 62.5 x 50 cm. A few slight scratches on the drawing.

Title at the bottom of the drawing: “Commune of Périers – Town Hall Project – Perspective View.” Signed lower right, above the title: “P. Paisan-Duclos.”

The town of Périers is located in the Manche department, north of Coutances and northwest of Saint-Lô. Its town hall was built between 1872 and 1875, following a competition launched in 1868 and won by the Parisian architect Frédéric Léon Fleury (1844–1931). Gustave Raulin received second prize. The construction project was supervised on site by the architect for the Coutances district, Pierre Desheulles.

Paul Paisant-Duclos (1843–1909), a native of Lisieux (Calvados) and the son of an architect (his father, Richard Gabriel Paisant, was an architect and public works engineer for the Lisieux district), was a student of Simon Constant-Dufeux and Émile Vaudremer at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He worked primarily in Caen and Paris (private residences). He exhibited at the Salon des Artistes Français beginning in 1870 and, that year, submitted a set of seven drawings for the Périers City Hall, which were likely those he entered in the competition.

Ref. A14-45