Charles Nègre (French, 1820-1880)
Saint Pierre Basilica, Avignon, 1852
Salt print and its waxed paper negative
Negative 16.5 cm tondo; print 16.5 cm tondo, trimmed
This print and its negative show the remarkable detail of this late Gothic church. It is one of the first times the artist used a 16 cm circular format which he refined continually over the course of his career. The exposure was made with a small lens in combination with a larger camera body which enabled him to concentrate the lens' visual field in its entirety onto the sensitized paper negative at the back of the camera. Nègre was so taken with the circular format exhibited here that he regularly made trimmed tondo prints of his architectural views and genre compositions.
A pupil of Le Gray, Nègre traveled to Avignon to photograph for his projected publication, Le Midi de la France. In an 1854 manuscript that outlined his approach, he wrote that for audiences interested in architecture, "I have produced a general view of each monument for the architect. In placing the horizon line at the midpoint of the building's height and the point of view at the center, I have tried to avoid perspective distortions and have attempted to give to the drawings the aspect and the precision of a geometric elevation." The elevation view to which Nègre refers was more than a mere architectural convention, it was an essential form of visual knowledge in the nineteenth century. Nègre may not have let on how the elevation view was difficult to capture using the principles and limitations specific to the camera. Photographers of architecture were faced with many obstacles, from finding a suitable vantage point to framing the motif in order to complement the building's inherent geometry.
William Henry Fox Talbot (English, 1800-1877)
Bust of Patroclus, 1842
Salt print from a calotype negative
13.0 x 12.8 cm
Patroclus, the defender of Achilles, was Talbot's first and favorite portrait sitter. The plaster cast he had at Lacock Abbey was a copy of the marble in the British Museum. Talbot's chemistry required lengthy exposures and a stationary object, such as this bust, was ideal as a subject. The brush strokes around the border of this exceptional print indicate that Talbot coated the sheet of paper by hand. Printed from the same negative as Plate V in The Pencil of Nature.
Benjamin Brecknell Turner (English, 1815-1894)
Bust of Dionysus, early 1850s
Calotype negative, waxed
21.5 x 19.0 cm, irregularly trimmed
Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and the patron of theater, is often better known by his Roman name of Bacchus. The cast in this photograph is after the head of Dionysus in the Capitoline Museum, Rome.
Roger Fenton (English, 1819-1869)
Two views in the Crimea, 1855
Salt prints from collodion negatives
25.3 x 34.9 cm; 22.7 x 35.9 cm
Made during the Crimean War, these images reflect Fenton’s mastery of pictorial composition. The road to Balaklava running past the village of Kadikoi uses the motif of a serpentine road to lead the viewer’s eye into the landscape. While soldiers and camp tents are visible in the foreground, the tumult of war is minimized and overshadowed by the expansive vista captured by the lens of Fenton's camera. In the nearly abstract composition of Sebastopol from Cathcart’s Hill, Fenton focuses his lens on the middle-ground to show the officers looking out over the harbor at Sebastopol. The sky was masked out in the printing.
Félix Teynard (French, 1817-1892)
Louksor (Thebes). Construction Postérieure - Galeries Parallèles. Pl. 32, 1851-1852
Untrimmed proof salt print from a waxed paper negative
26.4 x 31.5 cm
Teynard was a French engineer from Grenoble who may have learned the waxed paper negative process from Le Gray. The 160 images he made of the architecture and landscape of Egypt and Nubia in 1851-1852 constitute the most complete photographic record to date of the Nile Valley from Cairo to the Second Cataract. These were printed by the Paris firm of Fonteny in 1853-1854 and Teynard’s book, Egypte et Nubie, was published by Goupil in 1858. The loose, untrimmed print with its dark borders was not printed by Fonteny, but more likely by Teynard himself. Trim lines visible around the edges are instructions to the binder on how the print was to be trimmed for mounting. Consequently, this unique print displays more content than the mounted plate 32 in published copies.
Félix Teynard (French, 1817-1892)
Égypte, Louksor (Thèbes). Construction Postérieure, 1851-1852
Salt print, 1853-1854, from a waxed paper negative
24.0 x 30.4 cm
Teynard was a French engineer from Grenoble who may have learned the waxed paper negative process from Le Gray. He traveled on an extended voyage to photograph the architecture and landscape of Egypt and Nubia in 1851-1852. His 160 images constitute the most complete photographic record to date of the Nile Valley from Cairo to the Second Cataract. These were printed by the Paris firm of Fonteny in 1853-1854 and the book, Egypte et Nubie, was published by Goupil in 1858.
Dr. John Murray (Scottish, 1809-1898)
Mosque of the Taj Mahal, Agra, 1864
Albumen print and its paper negative, waxed, with applied pigment
Negative 37.5 x 46.5 cm, irregularly trimmed; print 35.7 x 44.9 cm
Dr. John Murray had a distinguished career as a medical officer in India from 1833-1871. Murray began practicing calotype photography there in 1848 and was the first photographer to systematically record the antiquities in India.
Louis-Auguste & Auguste-Rosalie Bisson (Bisson Frères) (French, 1814-1876 & 1826-1900)
Miter of St. Louis, Bishop of Toulouse, 1850s
Albumen print from a collodion negative
34.3 x 24.1 cm
St. Louis of Toulouse (1274-1297) was born in Brignoles, Provence, the second son of Charles II d'Anjou, King of Naples. When his older brother died in 1295, Louis became heir to his father's secular titles, but he gave up all claims to his royal inheritance in favor of his brother, Robert of Anjou. Louis took the Franciscan vows and pursued a life of poverty and chastity. He was consecrated Bishop of Toulouse in 1297. That same year he died, aged 23. His canonization took place in 1317. Relics of the saint are preserved in the church of Saint-Sauveur at Brignoles, including the miter reproduced in this photograph.
Louis-Auguste & Auguste-Rosalie Bisson (Bisson Frères) (French, 1814-1876 & 1826-1900)
Miter of St. Louis, Bishop of Toulouse, 1850s
Albumen print from a collodion negative
34.3 x 24.2 cm
St. Louis of Toulouse (1274-1297) was born in Brignoles, Provence, the second son of Charles II d'Anjou, King of Naples. When his older brother died in 1295, Louis became heir to his father's secular titles, but he gave up all claims to his royal inheritance in favor of his brother, Robert of Anjou. Louis took the Franciscan vows and pursued a life of poverty and chastity. He was consecrated Bishop of Toulouse in 1297. The same year, at the age of 23, he died. His canonization took place in 1317. Relics of the saint are preserved in the church of Saint-Sauveur at Brignoles, including the miter reproduced in this photograph.
Charles Nègre (French, 1820-1880)
“Pifferaro and Romani woman in Nègre's doorway, l'île Saint-Louis,” 1853-1854
Salt print from a collodion negative, together with a modern heliogravure from the original steel plate printed by Atelier de Saint-Prex, Switzerland, from André Jammes 1982 portfolio
Henry Stevens (English, 1843-1825)
"Dendrobium calceolus," 1880s
Carbon print
36.7 x 44.1 cm
Flower studies and animals are Henry Stevens’s chief subjects. At his home at Addlestone in Surrey, Stevens was an enthusiastic grower of rare flowers. Stevens skillfully made his carbon enlargements from dry plates varying in size. Resistant to fading, carbon prints are comparatively permanent. Both large carbon prints on display exhibit the medium’s characteristic dense, glossy dark tones and in the darkest areas of the petals the prints show slight relief contours where more pigmented gelatin remains. Stevens was a member of the Brotherhood of the Linked Ring, a British invitation-only photographic society founded in May 1892. The Linked Ring aimed to promote photography as an art form. Other members of the Brotherhood included Frederick H. Evans, Alvin Langdon Coburn, Frederick Hollyer, Alfred Stieglitz and Clarence H. White.
Henry Stevens (English, 1843-1825)
"Odontoglossum crispum guttatum," 1880s
Carbon print
36.4 x 44.2 cm
Flower studies and animals are Henry Stevens’s chief subjects. At his home at Addlestone in Surrey, Stevens was an enthusiastic grower of rare flowers. Stevens skillfully made his carbon enlargements from dry plates varying in size. Resistant to fading, carbon prints are comparatively permanent. Both large carbon prints on display exhibit the medium’s characteristic dense, glossy dark tones and in the darkest areas of the petals the prints show slight relief contours where more pigmented gelatin remains. Stevens was a member of the Brotherhood of the Linked Ring, a British invitation-only photographic society founded in May 1892. The Linked Ring aimed to promote photography as an art form. Other members of the Brotherhood included Frederick H. Evans, Alvin Langdon Coburn, Frederick Hollyer, Alfred Stieglitz and Clarence H. White.