Charles Nègre

circular albumen print, signed by the photographer in ink on the image, matted, circa 1859

Private Collection, Europe

Acquired by the Quillan Company from the above, 1989

Jill Quasha, The Quillan Collection of Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Photographs (New York, 1991), pl. 15 (this print)

Other prints of this image:

Françoise Heilbrun, Charles Nègre 1820-1880: Das photographische Werk (Munich, 1988), fig. 100

Pierre Apraxine, Anne de Mondenard, and Roger Therond, Une Passion Française: Photographies de la collection Roger Therond (Paris: Maison Européenne de la Photographie, 1999, in conjunction with the exhibition), p. 203 

Brooks Johnson, Nineteenth Century French Photography (Norfolk: Chrysler Museum of Art, 1983, in conjunction with the exhibition), p. 20 

73 Photographs from David and Mary Robinson at the National Gallery of Art (San Francisco: Fraenkel Gallery, 2007), pl. 8

A Personal View: Photography in the Collection of Paul F. Walter (The Museum of Modern Art, 1985, in conjunction with the exhibition), pl. 12

Richard Hough, Mid 19th Century French Photograph: A Scottish Photography Group Exhibition (Edinburgh: The Scottish Photography Group Ltd., 1979, in conjunction with the exhibition), pl. 62

Grading this albumen print on a scale of 1 to 10 - 10 being an albumen print that has deep brown dark tones and highlights that retain all of their original detail - this print rates between 6 and 7. The print's darks are a medium brown, the highlights a light cream color. The print was trimmed by hand to its circular shape. There is old, possibly original, retouching in the vertical shape on right edge. The photographer's ink signature has aged well and is still bold.
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Taken in the late 1850s, at the height of Nègre's career, the photograph offered here comes from a series commissioned by Napoleon III to commemorate the opening of the Imperial Asylum at Vincennes, a convalescent home for workers.  This photograph shows a young laundress at work, her arms outstretched, holding the white linen she is in the midst of folding.  The sunlight streaming in the windows provides the only available light, making it a technical feat for the day and a testament to Nègre's ingenuity.  Like photographers Gustave Le Gray (Lot 40) and Henri Le Secq, Charles Nègre studied painting with academic painters Paul Delaroche and Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres.  Nègre saw his first photographs in 1844 and, fascinated by the new medium, he immediately began to experiment with it himself.