PHOTOGRAPHS
Nadar (Gaspard-Félix Tournachon)
France (1820 - 1910)
Edmond de Goncourt
1870
Woodburytype print
9 7/16 x 7 9/16 in. (24 x 19.2 cm) image size; 13 7/16 x 10 in. (34.1 x 25.4 cm) mount sheet size
Joseph and Elaine Monsen Photography Collection
FA 2001.130

Nadar embraced the commercial side of photography in the 1860s, devoting his entrepreneurial talents to the burgeoning medium. His bohemian lifestyle, provocative personality, and well-known loquaciousness attracted Parisian celebrities to his portrait studio. His clientele included both distinguished and notorious figures in art and literature. Novelist Edmond de Goncourt, along with his brother, published a highly popular journal devoted to intimate accounts of Parisian society. This image was printed in the widely circulated Galerie Contemporaine, a pictorial Vanity Fair for the 1870s.. -- Label copy for 150 Works of Art, October 1, 2005 to February 26, 2006.