Getty Museum

Remise Circulaire Pour 32 Locomotives, à Nevers (Premiére Vue Intérieure)

Date

about 1860–1863

Medium

Albumen silver print

Culture

French

Department

Photographs

Institution

Getty Museum

Object ID

3e920b88-ea91-412e-b8d7-98ea6b3f747f

After 1850, France's railroads expanded rapidly under private ownership and with the encouragement of Napoleon III. Both the government and private owners of railroads commissioned photographs to attract new investors to the transportation system; the *Chemin de Fer du Bourbonnais* (Bourbonnais Railway Company) assigned Hippolyte-Auguste Collard to make this photograph, an interior view of a roundhouse, a building for servicing and housing locomotives. Roundhouses were less efficient than rectangular buildings because of their single rotating center slab that moved the locomotives into their berths. But that fact would never be deduced from this gleaming, orderly interior, a model of efficiency. Each identical engine aligns perfectly with the hood that draws the steam from the pipe, thus keeping the building clear of poisonous carbon monoxide fumes. Using a wide-angle lens, Collard has photographed the scene to maximize the room's spatial configuration, and in doing so he has flattened the perspective. The engines appear to be miniatures: only the door visible at the lower center edge between two engines gives an indication of the interior's actual scale and the technical feat that Collard achieved in rendering such a sweeping view.

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