Le chantier de l'arc de triomphe de l'Étoile à travers le fonds Jules-Denis Thierry de la bibliothèque historique de la Ville de Paris

« Le chantier de l'arc de triomphe de l'Étoile à travers le fonds Jules-Denis Thierry de la bibliothèque historique de la Ville de Paris », by Isabelle Rouge. Despite its great interest in regard of Art history, a very important collection of documents concerning the Parisian Arc de Triomphe de l'Etoile kept at the Paris Municipal Historic Library, has remained almost unknown till recently. Among those, a huge manuscript written around 1836 (at the time of the unveiling ceremony) by the architect Jules-Denis Thierry describes the famous building since the beginning of its construction in 1806. Thierry had worked on the building site as a State inspector since 1824. The text is illustrated by numerous architectural drawings, done in watercolours for each part of the monument. The same Thierry gathered other documents such as plans made by the previous architects of the building, and copies of lost original projects. Hence, this whole is a very interesting evidence of the great number of ideas that were proposed for the monument but never achieved, while being a precious account detailing the successive stages of the construction.