Print Size: 12" x 16" (Frame Size: 18" x 24") Artist: Camille Gravis
Building on the 1783 invention of balloon flight in France and its growing popularity for daredevils and documentation alike, hot air balloons were one of the attractions used to draw visitors to the 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris. Here a captive balloon floats high above the Eiffel Tower and Trocadero, its great clockface marking the time before the fair's 6 o'clock evening closing; two ear-ringing, mallett-wielding men hammer out the warning from the gondola suspended below. The watercolor is signed by Camille Gravis at bottom left, and also in the clock face where the artist also identifies his homebase in Amiens.
