La Salle Street from Court House Square, Chicago, in the Year 1865

Art Historical Context

This aquatint and etching captures a bustling view of La Salle Street looking out from Chicago’s Court House Square in 1865, a pivotal moment in the city’s growth just after the Civil War. Published in March 1927 by French-born printmaker Raoul Varin, the work offers a nostalgic glimpse of mid-nineteenth-century Chicago—its horse-drawn carriages, early commercial buildings, and emerging urban energy—long before the Great Fire of 1871 transformed the cityscape. By depicting a scene more than six decades earlier, Varin invites viewers to reflect on Chicago’s rapid transformation into a modern metropolis. The print’s rich brown tones, achieved through aquatint and etching on cream wove paper and finished with delicate hand-coloring, demonstrate the artist’s skill in blending traditional printmaking techniques with subtle painterly effects. Measuring roughly 15 by 21 inches in the image area, the composition balances architectural detail with lively street activity, creating a sense of depth and atmosphere typical of early twentieth-century reproductive prints meant for wider audiences. Housed in the Art Institute of Chicago’s Prints and Drawings department, this work serves as both a historical document and an artistic interpretation, preserving a vanished moment in the city’s history for later generations.