Cleveland Museum of Art

Village Scene (Southern France)

Date

c. 1853

Medium

salted paper print from waxed paper negative

Culture

France, 19th century

Department

Photography

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

Although best known for his development of the carte-de-visite photograph which immortalized many a Parisian, Disdéri's photographic career began around 1850 in a daguerrian studio in Brest. Beset with financial problems, he left his studio, wife, and family and moved to Nîmes in December 1852 or January 1853 where he learned the wet collodion-on-glass and wax paper negative processes. The oval vignette cropping and picturesque approach to the posed, but seemingly spontaneous, arrangement of figures and animals engaged in an outdoor activity in Village Scene is typical of the work Disdéri produced in Nîmes in 1853, for he abandoned the wax paper negative soon after learning it.

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