The Unveiling of the Eiffel Tower.
Wonderful color bird's-eye view of the 1889 Exposition Universelle, showing the exhibition's great outpouring of Beaux-Arts architecture. This World's Fair is, of course, most known for giving birth to the Eiffel Tower at the end of the Champs de Mars, where it is majestically depicted in the present image.
The view is exquisitely detailed, showing dozens of buildings specially constructed for the Exposition. Each building is labeled with the exhibitions contained, with various countries possessing their own buildings and different industries exhibiting in different locations.
Two inset views are provided, one of the Esplanade des Invalides, an extension of the exhibition located further upriver, and one of the Grand Hotel on the Boulevard des Capucines.
The view was published by Noailles in Paris, as a promotional for the Grand Hotel on the Boulevard des Capucines.
L'Exposition Universelle de 1889
This edition of the Paris World's Fair was, of course, best known for producing Gustave Eiffel's immense tower, which was the tallest structure in the world at the time when it was erected. Other notable buildings constructed for the Fair was the Gallery des Machines (located at the site of the present-day Grand Palais Ephemere), which displayed many of the technological exhibitions of the late era. The Fair would receive over 32 million visitors from May through to October.
The Fair, scheduled for the 100th year of the French Revolution, had this event as its central theme. As such, many of the European nations which still had monarchies officially boycotted the event, including the United Kingdom.