The Architect of Stone and Ink In the heart of nineteenth-century Paris, a period defined by both romantic fervor and a burgeoning scientific precision, Nicolas-Marie-Joseph Chapuy emerged as a master of the lithographic stone. Born in 1790, Chapuy possessed a unique intellectual foundation that would later define his artistic legacy; his early education at the prestigious École polytechnique instilled in him a rigorous understanding of engineering and structural geometry. While many artists of his era sought the ephemeral beauty of light and shadow through brushstrokes, Chapuy found his cal…