A Vision of Paris: The Roxane Debuisson Collection at Stanford

Stanford University Libraries presents A Vision of Paris: the Roxane Debuisson Collection at Stanford, on view in the Peterson Gallery and Munger Rotunda of the Cecil H. Green Library from September 22, 2026 to January 24, 2027. 

Roxane Debuisson (1927–2018) dedicated sixty years to documenting the transformation of the city of Paris during the nineteenth century.  If Roxane Debuisson could not stop the changes she saw underway in the late 20th century, she could at least preserve the city’s earlier history through images, literature, guidebooks, and other documents. 

Her lifelong project helped to document Paris during the nineteenth century, especially the city’s rapid changes from the 1850s to the 1870s, when Emperor Napoleon III and his prefect of the Seine, Baron Eugène Haussmann, transformed the city with new boulevards, green spaces, and public utilities, and fostered innovations in commercial and cultural practices. 

A Vision of Paris: the Roxane Debuisson Collection at Stanford draws upon the extensive array of commercial almanacs, prints, postcards, commercial ephemera, stereographs, manuscripts, historic photographs, and other items that are a part of the Roxane Debuisson Collection of Paris history, circa 1789-1970, acquired by the Department of Special Collections at Stanford University Libraries in 2020. These materials place Paris as the birthplace of political, commercial, and urban innovations, and as a city defined by the tension between its historical past and its continuous reinvention. The exhibit highlights the city’s rapid changes and their diverse causes, while suggesting the collection’s vast possibilities for both research and instruction.

This exhibition is curated by Sarah Sussman, Assistant University Librarian for Collections and Services & Curator of French and Italian Collections, Stanford University Libraries, and Chloe Summers Edmondson, Assistant Professor of French at the University of Miami. Produced and designed by Deardra Fuzzell, with assistance from Kylee Jo Diedrich, Sofia McGullam Ornelas, and Pasha Tope.

A Vision of Paris: the Roxane Debuisson Collection at Stanford will be open to the public. Registration at the entrance with a valid government ID is required to enter the Cecil H. Green Library and view the exhibit.