Scraps (Paris)

Charles Marville
Parc Monceau, Paris
ca. 1850
albumen silver print
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Jean-Baptiste Armand Guillaumin
View of the Seine, Paris
1871
oil on canvas
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Charles Marville
Entrée Principale, École des Beaux Arts, Paris
(with cast of the Belvedere Torso)
ca. 1875
albumen print
Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts

Riccardo Nobili
Atelier for Women at the Académie Julian, Paris
1880
drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Eugène Atget
Entrance to the Ancient Charnel House, Paris
1903
albumen silver print
Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia

Williams, Brown & Earle (Philadelphia)
Fontaine de l'Observatoire, Luxembourg Gardens, Paris
ca. 1905
hand-colored lantern slide
Archives of American Gardens, Washington DC

Eugène Atget
8 rue Barbette, Paris
1907
albumen silver print
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Eugène Atget
5 rue du Grenier Saint-Lazare, Paris
1908
albumen silver print
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Eugène Atget
Coin de la rue du Maure, Paris
(vue prise de la rue Beaubourg)
1908
albumen silver print
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Eugène Atget
Hôtel de Montmorency, Paris
1908
albumen silver print
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Marc Chagall
Paris through the Window
1913
oil on canvas
Guggenheim Museum, New York

Dorothea Tanning
Aux Environs de Paris
1962
oil on linen
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Leonard Freed
Portrait Exhibition in the Industrial Design Center, Paris
1977
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

William Eggleston
Untitled
(bolts of printed fabric, Paris)
2006
inkjet print
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Thaddeus Holownia
72 avenue Victor Hugo 16e, Paris
2007
gelatin silver print
Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton, New Brunswick

Thaddeus Holownia
Famille Ponsat, Cimetière du Père Lachaise, Paris
2007
gelatin silver print
Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton, New Brunswick

Thaddeus Holownia
Angel, Cimitière du Père Lachaise, Paris
2007
gelatin silver print
Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton, New Brunswick

from Auguries of Innocence

Each outcry of the hunted Hare

A fibre from the Brain does tear.

A Skylark wounded in the wing,

A Cherubim does cease to sing.

The wanton Boy that kills the Fly

Shall feel the Spider's enmity.

The Caterpiller on the Leaf

Repeats to thee thy Mother's grief.

The Strongest Poison ever known

Came from Caesar's Laurel Crown.

– William Blake (ca. 1800-1803)

Visual Relics (Édouard Baldus – 1850s)

Édouard Baldus
Palais des Tuileries, Paris
1856
(destroyed in 1871 under the Commune)
albumen silver print
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Édouard Baldus
Cour Intérieure, Louvre, Paris
ca. 1856
photogravure
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Édouard Baldus
Cour Visconti, Louvre, Paris (detail)
ca. 1856-57
albumen print
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri

Édouard Baldus
Bibliothèque Impériale, Louvre, Paris
ca. 1856-57
albumen print
Princeton University Art Museum

Édouard Baldus
Pavillon Colbert, Louvre, Paris
ca. 1855
salted paper print
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri

Édouard Baldus
Pavillon Denon, Louvre, Paris
ca. 1857
albumen print
Minneapolis Institute of Art

Édouard Baldus
Pavillon Mollien, Louvre, Paris
ca. 1856
albumen silver print
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Édouard Baldus
Pavillon Sully, Louvre, Paris
ca. 1852-55
albumen print
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Édouard Baldus
Pavillon Turgot, Louvre, Paris
ca. 1856-57
albumen print
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Édouard Baldus
Pavillon Richelieu, Louvre, Paris
ca. 1856-57
salted paper print
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

"Édouard-Denis Baldus was among a group of photographers selected in 1851 by the French government's Historic Monuments Commission to document the nation's historic and contemporary architectural achievements.  He used 'mammoth plates' – large glass negatives the same size as the prints (about 80 x 60 cm, or 32 x 24 inches) to photograph the recently completed buildings which were additions to the Louvre Museum.  The results show superb clarity of detail while conveying the imposing scale and grandeur of the buildings."

– curator's notes from the Vitoria & Albert Museum

Édouard Baldus
Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel, Paris
ca. 1857-58
albumen print
Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts

Édouard Baldus
Cathedral, Amiens
1855
albumen print
Cleveland Museum of Art

Édouard Baldus
Medieval Ramparts, Aigues-Mortes
ca. 1853-60
salted-paper-print-
Milwaukee Art Museum

Édouard Baldus
Amphithéâtre, Arles
before 1860
albumen silver print
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Édouard Baldus
Amphithéâtre, Arles
before 1860
albumen silver print
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Édouard Baldus
Untitled
1854
waxed paper negative
Art Institute of Chicago

At Home and Abroad with Girault de Prangey

Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey
Autoportrait
1840
daguerreotype
Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey
Portrait of a Woman holding a Flower
1842
daguerreotype
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey
Portrait of Mme Annette Langerrois
ca. 1842-44
daguerreotype
Bibliothèque nationale de France

Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey
Portrait of Two Women
ca. 1842-55
daguerreotype
Bibliothèque nationale de France

Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey
Study of a Tree
1841
daguerreotype
Bibliothèque nationale de France

Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey
Cedars of Lebanon
1844
daguerreotype
Bibliothèque nationale de France

Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey
Cathédrale Notre Dame, Paris
1841
daguerreotype
Bibliothèque nationale de France

Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey
At Sea, on board the ship Le Chaillé
ca. 1842-43
daguerreotype
Bibliothèque nationale de France

Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey
Arch of Constantine, Rome
1842
daguerreotype
private collection

Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey
Reliefs at Base, Arch of Constantine, Rome
1842
daguerreotype
private collection

Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey
Ponte Rotto, Rome
1842
daguerreotype
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

"When Girault photographed the Ponte Rotto, the oldest stone bridge in Rome, only two of its original five arches remained standing, and locals used it as a fishing pier. Built over the Tiber [as the Pons Aemilius] in the second century BC, it had suffered serious damage from generations of flooding.  At the end of the nineteenth century one of the arches was demolished [the perpetrators of that atrocity now slowly roasting in Hell] to make room for a new bridge, leaving the single arch that survives today." 

Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey
Temple of Castor and Pollux, Rome
1842
daguerreotype
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey
Vase, Basilica di Santa Cecilia in Trastevere, Rome
1842
daguerreotype
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey
Temple of Artemis, Sardis
1843
daguerreotype
Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey
Greco-Roman Theater Capital, Miletus
1843
daguerreotype
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey
Caryatid on the Erechtheum, Athens
1842
daguerreotype
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey
Temple of Olympian Zeus, Athens
1842
daguerreotype
private collection

Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey never exhibited his pioneering daguerreotypes, nor, dying without heirs, did he make any provision for their survival.  Most of the small metal plates, stored in small wooden boxes, lingered in his abandoned villa until their accidental discovery decades later by a neighboring landowner.  The majority are now in public institutions, but the example directly above, dating from the artist's 1842 sojourn in Athens, made its way to auction in 2003.  At that time, with the fame of Girault at last established, it commanded a hammer price of $922,488.