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€ 10.000 - 15.000
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€ 13.950
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Information
Albumen print applied on original cardboard
cm 32 x 40,7 (cm 50 x 64,5 cardboard) | 12.6 x 16 in. (19.7 x 25.4 in. cardboard)
cm 32 x 40,7 (cm 50 x 64,5 cardboard) | 12.6 x 16 in. (19.7 x 25.4 in. cardboard)
Signed in red ink on the image with photographer's credit blind stamp on the cardboard recto
Work object of declaration of cultural interest pursuant to art. 13 of Legislative Decree 22 January 2004, n.42
Literature
Aubenas, S. et al., Gustave Le Gray 1820-1884, Los Angeles, California, J. Paul Getty Museum, 2002, p. 108 and p. 363
Novak, A., 19th-century French master photographers: Life into art: The early years, 1840s-1870s, Chalfort (Pa.), 2017, p.51
Heilbrun, F., La Revue du Louvre et des musées de France, "Un Album de "primitifs" de la photographie française", Paris, Réunion des musées nationaux, 1980, ill. 8, p. 27
Gustave Le Gray, a character of international significance, studied paiting in Paul Delaroche's Parisian atelier but abandoned as he was not fully satisfied with the results, had learnt that sense of composition that would characterise his refined photographs. Within a few years, thanks to a particularly dynamic temperament, he established himself as an organiser (he was one of the founders of the Société héliographique and the Société française de photographie) as a theorist with the successful 'Traité pratique de la photographie sur papier et sur verre', but above all as a photographer with a special focus on architecture and landscape. In 1851 he invented a variant of calotype, which consisted of impregnating a very thin sheet of paper with wax before sensitising it, thus making it transparent and thus able to reproduce details more sharply. A true master of printing, he combined, as in this case, several shots to obtain the so-called 'moonlight effect' that inspired Gustave Courbet for the clouds in his paintings, thus ideally closing the circle between the photographic present and the pictorial past. He was very attached to Italy, staying in Rome (where he married), Naples, Florence and Sicily following the Impresa dei Mille. This is the reason why this extraordinary work is an object of cultural interest in our country and cannot be exported abroad.Novak, A., 19th-century French master photographers: Life into art: The early years, 1840s-1870s, Chalfort (Pa.), 2017, p.51
Heilbrun, F., La Revue du Louvre et des musées de France, "Un Album de "primitifs" de la photographie française", Paris, Réunion des musées nationaux, 1980, ill. 8, p. 27