Getty Museum
Gustave Mathieu
Creator
Nadar [Gaspard Félix Tournachon]French Photographer · 1820–1910
All works by this person →> The sun is only the practitioner, M[r]. Nadar is the artist who wants to give him some work. So wrote a critic of Gaspard Félix Tournachon in 1859. Tournachon's nickname, Nadar, derived from youthful slang, but became his professional signature and the name by which he is best known today. Poor but talented, Nadar began by scratching out a living as a freelance writer and caricaturist. His writi
More on Getty ULAN- Date
- 1855–1859
- Medium
- Salted paper print
- Culture
- French
- Department
- Photographs
- Institution
- Getty Museum
Weary if not haggard, the poet and editor Gustave Mathieu looks out at the viewer with an expression made inscrutable by the cloud of moustache and beard that wholly obscure his mouth. His slight figure is nattily clothed in tartan vest, nubbly tweed trousers, dark jacket, and overcoat. The latter may have been desirable for warmth because at this period many of Nadar's portraits were made in the garden of his rue Saint-Lazare studio. Many of Nadar's sitters were already famous when he photographed them; others became well known later in their lives. Mathieu was neither; his birth and death dates are not known and, aside from this photograph, the remaining records of his life are slight. Mathieu may no longer be a recognized name, but the fact that this is a mounted edition print indicates that Nadar thought there was public interest in his image.
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