Eugène Cuvelier 1837-1900

The collection of John Chandler Bancroft, Middletown, Rhode Island

Gustave J. S. White Co., Auctioneers, Newport, Rhode Island, 1989

Acquired from the above by a New England antiques dealer

To the present owners, 1989

Another print of this image:

Ulrike Gauss, Henning Weidemann, and Daniel Challe, Eugène Cuvelier (Stuttgart, 1996, in conjunction with the exhibition), no. 282

The present photograph bears a notable resemblance to a drawing by Théodore Rousseau entitled Route en Forêt  (Michel Schulman, Théodore Rousseau 1812 - 1867: Catalogue Raisonné de l'Oeuvre Graphique, no. 738), made circa 1860.  In both works, a dirt carriage track dominates the bottom and right sides of the frame, and a grove of tall trees stands on the left.   The photograph and the drawing appear to have been made from similar vantage points: Cuvelier and Rousseau each placed themselves squarely in the middle of the track in formulating their compositions.  The depth of the shadows in Cuvelier's photograph -- in the foreground, and pooled beneath the stand of trees -- indicates that he took this image under the full force of the sun on a particularly bright day. 

Gauss does not list this salt print in her census, and accounts for only one albumen print.