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The vampire

The vampire
(Le Stryge)
 1853

Medium
etching
Measurements
15.5 × 11.6 cm (image) 17.1 × 13.2 cm (plate) 25.1 × 20.6 cm (sheet)
Catalogue/s Raisonné
Schneiderman 27 iv/x
Edition
4th of 10 states
Inscription
printed in ink (in image) l.l.: CM
printed in ink below image l.l.: C Meryon del.sculp-
printed (reversed) in ink below image l.l.: MDCCLIII
printed in ink below image l.r. A Delatre imp. me de la buchome.6.
printed in ink below image l.c.: Insatiable vampire l'éternelle luxure / Sur la Grande Cité convoite sapature / C.M.
Accession Number
p.186.8-1
Departments
International Prints / International Prints and Drawings
Credit Line
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased, 1891
This digital record has been made available on NGV Collection Online through the generous support of the Joe White Bequest
Gallery location
Not on display
About this work

The vampire, which depicts a stone gargoyle from Paris’s Notre-Dame cathedral against an aerial view of the city, is one of Meryon’s most famous etchings. The sinister atmosphere of the print, which is enhanced by the wheeling black crows, is underscored by Meryon’s addition of two lines of verse in the fourth state: ‘The insatiable vampire, eternal lust / Forever coveting its food in the great city’. Meryon had a tumultuous life and spent periods of time in care for mental instability. The dark, Gothic tenor of many of his prints has been read in the context of his biography.