A close friend of Edgar Degas’s and a prolific printmaker, Henri Rivière set out to fully represent the Paris of his day through a series of 36 widely varying perspectives. Each image was united by the presence of the distinctive Eiffel Tower. The city’s laundry industry features throughout the prints, which centers on a weathered wash boat in Bas-Meudon, an industrial suburb both physically and mentally removed from Paris, barely visible in the distance.