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| Gustave Le Gray Ramparts at Carcassonne salted paper print from waxed paper negative 1851 Metropolitan Museum of Art |
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| Gustave Le Gray Seascape 1857 albumen silver print Getty |
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| Gustave Le Gray Portail milieu d'Aubeterre 1851 salted paper print from waxed paper negative Metropolitan Museum of Art |
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| Gustave Le Gray Effect of Sunlight: Ocean no.23 ca. 1857-59 albumen silver print Getty |
Albumen silver prints and salted paper prints by early French photographer Gustave Le Gray (1820-1884). He was most active and influential in Paris during the 1850s, conducting technical experiments and teaching the craft to many of those who would become his artistic successors. The last period of Le Gray's life was set in Egypt, where he became a professor of drawing.
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| Gustave Le Gray Victor Cousin ca. 1854-59 albumen silver print Getty |
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| Gustave Le Gray Cavalry Maneuvers at Camp de Châlons 1857 albumen silver print Metropolitan Museum of Art |
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| Gustave Le Gray Standing Female Nude ca. 1855 albumen silver print Clark Art Institute |
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| Gustave Le Gray Reclining Female Nude ca. 1856 albumen silver print Metropolitan Museum of Art |
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| Gustave Le Gray The Steamboat 1856 albumen silver print Victoria & Albert Museum |
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| Gustave Le Gray Louvre - Pavillon Mollien ca. 1855 albumen silver print Victoria & Albert Museum |
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| Gustave Le Gray Paris Salon of 1852 1852 salted paper print from waxed paper negative Metropolitan Museum of Art |
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| Gustave Le Gray Temple of Edfu 1867 albumen silver print Metropolitan Museum of Art |
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| Gustave le Gray Tree Study: Forest of Fontainebleau ca. 1856 albumen silver print Metropolitan Museum of Art |
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| Gustave Le Gray Hollow Oak Tree: Fountainebleau 1867 albumen silver print Metropolitan Museum of Art Bequest of Maurice B. Sendak, 2012 |
It was a small shock so see Maurice Sendak identified by the Metropolitan Museum as the donor of the final Le Gray albumen silver print, Hollow Oak Tree: Fountainebleau. But then one look and it was clear why Maurice Sendak would have coveted this image – as if a forest from one of his own drawings had been transformed backwards into an almost-actual Nineteenth Century.