Paris 17th arrondissement, at dusk series — 6 Paintings by Arnaud Quercy

The seventeenth series of 72 Facets of Paris, six facets caught in the long dusk between twenty to six and twenty past seven. Here the waltz softens: the strict three-time loosens its grip as the dance leans into evening, carrying us out of the old Batignolles village — its market street and its village square — and up into the grand bourgeois plaine Monceau. It is the hour of apéritif and the first lit windows, the day not yet spent but already turning warm and low.

The harmonies of these six measures are rich and shaded, the ninths and dominant sevenths of an evening that hangs rather than resolves. Two facets rest on the luminous D♭maj9, two on the brooding minor-ninths B♭−9 and E♭−9, while A♭7 and G♭7 lend the warm pull of the dominant. Translated through the artist's ideamorphic method, these chords fall to dusk colours — grey and magenta, olive and teal, blue arcs and a charge of coral — stone façades caught between the last grey light and the first artificial glow, every canvas a moment of evening held just before nightfall.

The six places trace a slow drift north and west. The market of the Batignolles opens at twenty to six on its village street (B♭−9): grey and magenta, red and ochre, a blue disc and teal — stalls and apéritif in the square. At six the boulevard des Batignolles answers in E♭−9, magenta and blue, green and a purple arc, grey and olive — stone façades and plane trees at the start of evening. Twenty past six brings the café terraces of the place du Docteur-Félix-Lobligeois (E♭−9 with A♭7): a blue arc and magenta, orange and white over teal and grey, the village square at apéritif. Then the dance climbs into the plaine Monceau — 129 avenue de Wagram at twenty to seven (D♭maj9), grey and black above magenta and coral, blue and a grey arc, wide façades as dusk gathers. At seven a brasserie on avenue de Villiers lights up in G♭7, teal and green, purple and a white arc, olive and magenta — dinner beginning. And at twenty past seven the prologue closes on rue Fortuny by the Parc Monceau (D♭maj9): teal and a grey half-moon, orange and red, blue against a black edge — elegant stone at dusk.

Seen together, the six compose a field of evening warmth and shadow — magenta and coral flaring against grey and olive and teal, the cool stone of the 17th catching the day's last light just as the lamps come on. Each facet holds its own square of the mosaic, from column 7 to column 8, and fully assembled the seventy-two form a single abstract portrait of Paris. Like the whole cycle, these six facets were commissioned together and now belong to a single Paris collection.