Gustave Le Gray (French, 1820-1884)

Marine, études de nuages, 1856-1857

Albumen print from a collodion negative

31.6 x 42.0 cm

Of all Le Gray's seascapes this image has the lowest horizon line, thereby emphasizing the atmospheric volume of the cloud formations. This is a particularly fine example of an image rarely found.

Anna Atkins (English, 1799-1871)

"South America," circa 1851-1854

Cyanotype photogram

25.6 x 20.1

After Anna Atkins, one of the earliest women photographers, produced British Algae, the first published book printed and illustrated with photography, she turned her love of the photogram toward the production of images of sheer visual pleasure. Her cyanotypes of the 1850s are striking precursors of the expressive photography of twentieth-century and contemporary artists. Fellow botanists frequently gave Atkins specimens from their travels.

Gustave Le Gray (French, 1820-1884)

"Mer Méditerrannée, Cette, No. 18" [Sète], 1857

Albumen print from one or two collodion negatives

32.2 x 41.7 cm

Le Gray made a series of poetic and meditative seascapes made between 1856 and 1858 that brought him international acclaim for their technical and artistic achievement. This print demonstrates his mastery of the medium with a tour de force combination of clouds, empty seas and sun. Capturing the dramatic effects of sunlight on water and the subtleties of cloud formations on the Mediterranean coast, with Mount Agde in the distance, this seascape is among the works for which Le Gray is most celebrated. This exquisite and luminous example displays the original lustre for which Le Gray's finest prints were renowned.

Henri Le Secq (French, 1818-1882)

Façade d'une ferme, 1851

Salt print from a waxed paper negative

24.7 x 34.1 cm

The textures of the thatch roof, rough composite walls, and earthen foreground in this image are evocatively rendered by Le Secq's use of the waxed paper process which he learned from Gustave Le Gray, a fellow painter in the studio of Paul Delaroche. Le Gray's process was convenient for producing landscapes since the paper could be prepared in advance and used dry in the camera. The waxed paper produced intense black tones, imparting a painterly quality to subjects recorded from nature, a quality enhanced by Le Secq's long exposures.

Henry White (English, 1819-1903)

"Sleds cottage, Betws-y-Coed" North Wales, mid 1850s

Albumen print from a collodion negative

19.6 x 25.0 cm

This rustic prayer house in the woods with its heavy slate roof  is part of the community in the Conwy valley in Conwy County Borough, Wales, located in the historic county of Caernarfonshire, right on the boundary with Denbighshire, in the Gwydir Forest.

Étienne Carjat (French, 1828-1906)

Henri Monnier, actor, playing the part of Monsieur Prudhomme, circa 1875

Woodburytype with its gelatin mold

Gelatin mold 24.0 x 19.1 cm; Woodburytype 23.8 x 19.0 cm

The playwright, artist, and comic actor Henri-Bonaventure Monnier (1799-1877) created the fictional characters Monsieur et Madamme Prudhomme (honest man) to lampoon the Parisian petite bourgeoisie.  From the 1830s to 1850s, Monnier satirized French middle-class manners in theatrical reviews and lithographic caricatures featuring the Prudhommes to the delight of the literary and artistic circles of his day.

Ernst Heeger (Austrian, 1783-1866)

Jaws of a horse fly, 1861

Hand-colored salt print from a glass negative

20.3 x 13.4 cm